The application effect of virtual reality in labor pain management: a Meta analysis / 中国实用护理杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To evaluate the application effect of virtual reality in labor pain management by Meta analysis.Methods:The randomized controlled trials on the impact of virtual reality on labor pain was searched by PubMed (Medline), Web of Science, The Cochrane Library, Embase, CINAHL, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang database, Chinese biomedical database, and VIP database from their inception until July 2021. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bais of included studies. Meta-analysis was performed using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) software Version 3.Results:Totally, 658 pregnant women were identified in the search, which were narrowed down to 8 studies. The results of Meta-analysis showed that the virtual reality group decreased the labor pain compared with the normal nursing group ( MD=-1.13, 95% CI-1.59 to -0.67, P<0.01), especially during the active phase of labor ( MD=-1.20, 95% CI-1.96 to -0.45, P<0.01). Besides, compared with the normal nursing group, the virtual reality group had a shorter first stage duration of labor ( MD=-0.93, 95% CI-1.51 to -0.34, P<0.01) and a lower level of anxiety ( SMD=-1.54, 95% CI-2.22 to -0.85, P<0.01). However, there was no significant difference between two groups in the pain scores during the latent phase of labor ( MD=-0.41, 95% CI-1.30 to 0.47, P>0.05) and the second stage duration of labor ( MD=-0.37, 95% CI-3.27 to 2.53, P>0.05). Conclusions:The findings of this Meta-analysis showed that the virtual reality significantly reduced the labor pain, shorted the first stage labor duration and lowered anxiety level. However, due to the limited quantity and quality of the included studies, its conclusions need to be verified by more large sample multicenter randomized controlled trials with rigorous design in the future.