Effect of applied muscle tension on improving vasovagal reactions among blood donors: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective To systematically evaluate the effect of applied muscle tension (AMT) exercises on reducing vasovagal reactions(VVRs) among blood donors by meta-analysis. Methods Nine related databases including MEDLINE, Web of Science and CINAHL were searched using "applied muscle tension" and "vasovagal reactions" as keywords to collect clinical studies on the effects of AMT exercise on VVRs during blood donation. Two researchers independently screened, evaluated the quality and extracted data from the retrieved literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RevMan 5.4 was used to conduct meta-analysis on the extracted data. Results A total of 7 articles were finally included, 5 in English and 2 in Chinese, covering 6 808 blood donors. The experimental group performed AMT during blood donation, while the control group did not. Compared with the control group, the difference in reducing the incidence of VVRs [ RR = 0.60, 95%CI (0.42, 0.87), P<0.01] was statistically significant in the AMT group. Conclusion AMT can effectively reduce the incidence of VVRs during blood donation. However, due to the limitation in the included studies, high-quality studies with perspectiveness, multicenter, large-sample size are further needed for validation in the future.

Keywords

• applied muscle tension (amt)
• vasovagal reactions (vvrs)
• blood donation reaction
• meta-analysis