The efficacy and safety of moxibustion for pressure injury: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Pressure injury is an important global health issue characterized by the high incidence, rapid progression, and difficult healing. How to perform timely treatment and care have been the current focus and challenge for health care professionals. Moxibustion can improve skin microcirculation, promote blood circulation, activate tissue cells, inhibit, and kill bacteria on the wounded surface, thus promoting wound healing. However, the clinically reported efficacy of moxibustion in the treatment of pressure injuries varies a lot and lacks evidence-based medical evidence. Therefore, this meta-analysis aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of moxibustion on the treatment of pressure injuries. METHODS: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) reporting the moxibustion for pressure injury published before January 2022 will be searched in online databases, including the Chinese Scientific Journal Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Wanfang Database, China Biomedical Literature Database, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science. References of eligible literatures will be manually reviewed. According to inclusion and exclusion criteria, literature screening, data extraction and quality assessment will be independently performed by 2 reviewers, and meta-analysis of relevant data will be conducted using Stata14.0 software. RESULTS: The study will provide a high-quality convincing assessment of efficacy and safety of moxibustion for pressure injury. CONCLUSION: The results of this study will provide the latest evidence support for judging the efficacy and safety of moxibustion on the treatment of pressure injury. OSF REGISTRATION NUMBER: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/T543Y.