Clinical massage therapy for patients with exercise-induced fatigue: A protocol for systematic review and meta analysis

BACKGROUND: Exercise-induced fatigue (EF) has been a major area of interest within the field of sports and clinical medicine. Implemented on people's skin, muscles, and joints as an important part of complementary and alternative medicine , massage therapy has a positive effect on the recovery of EF and sports injuries. In this systematic review, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of massage therapy for patients with EF. METHODS: We will search the following electronic databases for randomized controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of massage therapy in treating EF: China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang and PubMed Database, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Excerpta Medica database, and Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online. Each database will be searched from inception to May 2020. The entire process will include study selection, data extraction, risk of bias assessment and meta-analyses. RESULTS: This proposed study will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of massage therapy for patients with EF. The outcomes will include change in fatigue relief and adverse effect. CONCLUSIONS: This proposed systematic review will evaluate the existing evidence on the effectiveness and safety of massage therapy for patients with EF. DISSEMINATION AND ETHICS: The results of this review will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication. Because all of the data used in this systematic review and meta-analysis has been published, this review does not require ethical approval. Furthermore, all data will be analyzed anonymously during the review process.