The effectiveness and safety of Naoxintong capsules in the treatment of vascular dementia: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Traditional Chinese medicine Naoxintong capsules have achieved good results in the treatment of vascular dementia, but there is no evidence-based medical evidence on the effectiveness and safety of the drug. Therefore, this study uses meta-analysis method to systematically evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Naoxintong capsules in the treatment of vascular dementia, with the aim of providing scientific guidance for clinical treatment and practice. METHODS: This study retrieves a total of 7 network electronic databases, including 4 Chinese databases: China biomedical literature database, CNKI, Chongqing VIP database and WANFANG database, and three English databases: PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library. Using the combination of theme words and key words to retrieve the Chinese and English database, the literature is searched from January 1, 1990 to October 1, 2021. Two researchers independently sift through the literature, extract data and evaluate the bias risk included in the study, and in the event of a disagreement, the third researcher is invited to discuss the decision, followed by meta-analysis using software RveMan 5.3 and Stata 12.0. RESULTS: All findings of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed, high-quality academic journal of medicine. CONCLUSION: The results of this study will provide evidence for clinicians to find effective and safe methods of treating vascular dementia in TCM. OSF REGISTRATION NUMBER: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/YVF72, https://osf.io/yvf72.