Olfactive stimulation interventions for managing procedural pain in preterm and full-term neonates: a systematic review protocol

BACKGROUND: While hospitalized in the NICU, preterm neonates undergo many painful procedures. This may be the same for full-term neonates when longer hospitalization is required. Untreated and repeated pain has short-term as well as long-term consequences for these neonates. Pharmacological pain management methods have many limitations in their applications for both preterm and full-term neonates. A combination of different non-pharmacological methods is recommended for pain management. The effect of olfactive stimulation as a non-pharmacological pain management method was investigated by a few studies in the past years with premature and term neonates, but no systematic review has been conducted. The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the effect of olfactive stimulation intervention on the pain response of preterm and full-term neonates during painful procedures. METHODS: An electronic search will be conducted in various databases such as PubMed (1946 to date), MEDLINE (1946 to date), CINAHL (1981 to date), Embase (1947 to date), PsycINFO (1806 to date), Web of Science (1945 to date), CENTRAL and Scopus (1960 to date), and Proquest, without restriction for the year of publication. Only studies published in English or French will be included. The search will be conducted using the following three concepts: pain, odors, and neonates. Selection of articles, data extraction, and assessment of risk of bias will be conducted by two independent researchers. A third researcher will intervene in case of disagreement. According to the availability of studies and data homogeneity, the results will be combined to perform a meta-analysis, or they will be described by a narrative synthesis. DISCUSSION: This systematic review will provide light on the current state of knowledge on the effectiveness of olfactive stimulation interventions for managing pain in preterm and full-term neonates. This review will guide clinical practice as well as research to improve preterm and full-term neonates’ pain management and prevent short-term and long-term complications caused by pain. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42017058021 ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13643-017-0589-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.