Effects of massage therapy on pain and anxiety intensity in patients with burns: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

This systematic review and meta‐analysis aimed to examine the effects of massage therapy on pain and anxiety intensity in patients with burns. A comprehensive, systematic search was conducted in various international electronic databases, such as Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and Persian electronic databases such as Iranmedex, and Scientific Information Database using keywords extracted from Medical Subject Headings such as ‘Massage therapy’, ‘Musculoskeletal manipulations’, ‘Acute pains’, ‘Burning pain’, and ‘Burn’ from the earliest to October 17, 2022. Cochran's tool is used to check the risk of bias for randomised clinical trial (RCT) articles. The methodological index for non‐randomised studies was used to assess the risk of bias in quasi‐experimental studies. STATA version 14 software was used to perform the meta‐analysis. A 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to determine statistical significance. Heterogeneity was investigated with I (2). A P‐value less than .1 was considered statistically significant for publication bias value. A total of 733 patients with burns were included in seven studies. Five studies had an RCT design and two studies had a quasi‐experimental design. The duration of the study was reported in five studies, with a mean of 42.40 weeks. The duration of the intervention was reported in seven studies with a mean of 22.86 minutes. The results of the meta‐analysis showed using various types of massage therapy interventions significantly reduced pain intensity in the intervention group compared with the control group (weighted mean difference: −2.08, 95% CI: −2.55 to −1.62, Z = 8.77, I (2): 67.1%, P < .001). Massage therapy intervention significantly reduced the intensity of anxiety in burn patients (standard mean difference: −7.07, 95% CI: −10.13 to −4.01, Z = 4.53, I (2): 98.2, P < .001). Overall, the present systematic review and meta‐analysis showed that massage therapy can reduce the intensity of pain and anxiety in burn patients. Therefore, it is recommended that health managers and policymakers pay special attention to massage therapy as a simple, low‐cost, and efficient non‐pharmacological treatment to relieve pain and anxiety in burn patients.