Korean J Adult Nurs.  2011 Aug;23(4):340-350.

A Meta-Analysis of Intervention Studies on Nausea and Vomiting in Cancer Patients

• Oh PJ
• Yoo JH

Abstract

PURPOSE
This study was designed to analyze the characteristics and effect size of published intervention studies related to nausea & vomiting among cancer patients.
METHODS
A total of 1,083 studies were retrieved. From these studies, 20 studies met the inclusion criteria with a total of 698 participants. Two authors independently extracted data from the selected studies and assessed the methodological quality. The data were analyzed by the RevMan 5.0 program of Cochrane library.
RESULTS
The twenty studies utilized various non-pharmacological interventions: Nine studies on acupuncture (45%), Five studies utilized massage (25%), Two studies used oral cryotherapy (10%) and Four studies used other therapies. In the twenty studies the effect size of the intervention studies reported a higher effect sizes for massage (d=-1.62) and acupuncture (d=-0.89).
CONCLUSION
This study suggests that non-drug therapy can reduce the levels of nausea and vomiting intensity. Massage and acupuncture interventions studies were more numerous and this may account for the higher effect rate.

MeSH Terms

Acupuncture
Cryotherapy
Humans
Clinical Trial
Massage
Nausea
Vomiting