Effect of auricular point pressing therapy on postoperative pain of fracture: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: In clinical practices, postoperative fracture patients are often treated with analgesics. As one of the alternative therapies for nondrug analgesia, auricular point pressing has advantages of simple operation, easy to use, no injury and adverse reactions, and great potential for development. In this study, the effect of auricular point pressing therapy on postoperative pain of fracture was objectively evaluated through the method of meta-analysis, so as to provide evidence for clinical applications. METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Wan fang Database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Database were systematically searched and randomized controlled trials on auricular point pressing in the treatment of postoperative pain after fracture were includes. After independent literature screening, data extraction and quality evaluation by 2 researchers, the original data was retrieved, merged, and analyzed. RevMan 5.3 software was adopted for meta-analysis RESULTS: This study could provide high-quality evidence to evaluate the effect of auricular point pressing therapy on postoperative pain of fracture. CONCLUSION: This systematic review explored whether auricular point pressing therapy is effective on the intervention of postoperative pain after fracture. OSF REGISTRATION NUMBER: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/AZ4JQ.