Effects of intermittent feeding versus continuous feeding on enteral nutrition tolerance in critically ill patients: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Nutritional support is an indispensable treatment for critically ill patients. Enteral nutrition intolerance is one of the obstacles to the smooth progress of enteral nutrition. Enteral nutrition can be divided into continuous feeding and intermittent feeding. However, the effectiveness and safety of the 2 ways of nutrition infusion are controversial clinically. Therefore, this meta-analysis further evaluated the effect of intermittent feeding versus continuous feeding on enteral nutrition tolerance in critically ill patients. METHODS: Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, EMbase, China Biology Medicine disc (CBM), China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), China Journal full-text Database (CNKI), and Wanfang Database were searched for all randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effects of intermittent and continuous feeding on enteral nutrition tolerance in critically ill patients. The quality of literatures was strictly evaluated and the data were extracted by 2 investigators. Meta-analysis was carried out by applying RevMan 5.5 software. RESULTS: The results of this meta-analysis are published in peer-reviewed journals. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides reliable evidence-based support for the effects of intermittent and continuous feeding on enteral nutrition tolerance in critically ill patients. OSF REGISTRATION NUMBER: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/4BP5X