What is the effect of chest physiotherapy in hospitalized children with pneumonia?
Chest physiotherapy is applied in clinical practice for the treatment of pneumonia. However, its use is still controversial. Searching in Epistemonikos database, which is maintained by screening 30 databases, we identified one systematic review including two relevant randomized controlled trials. We combined the evidence using meta-analysis and generated a summary of findings table following the GRADE approach. We concluded it is unclear whether chest physiotherapy increases or decreases the length of hospitalization, severity, or the time to clinical improvement in children with pneumonia because the certainty of the evidence is very low.
Programa Asistencia Ventilatoria No Invasiva (ANVI) Ministerio de Salud, Chile; Proyecto Epistemonikos. Address: Facultad de Medicina, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Lira 63, Santiago Centro, Chile. Email: lfdamiani@uc.cl.
Felipe
F
Damiani
Proyecto Epistemonikos; Unidad de paciente crítico pediátrico, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Rodrigo
R
Adasme
D002648:Child; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007902:Length of Stay; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D011014:Pneumonia / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D012138:Respiratory Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index