Effectiveness comparison of nonpharmacological analgesia delivery methods A protocol for systematic review and network meta-analysis

Background: Childbirth is a complex and special physiological process. Pain often accompanies the whole process of delivery. Long term pain will affect the physiological and psychological of pregnant women, and severe pain will affect the delivery process and the life of maternal and fetal. There are 2 ways to relieve delivery pain: drug analgesia and nonpharmacological analgesia. Nonpharmacological analgesia has less effect on the fetus than drug analgesia and is currently a more popular method for labor analgesia. Due to the lack of randomized trials comparing the efficacy of various nonpharmacological analgesia, it is still difficult to judge the relative efficacy. Therefore, we intend to conduct a network meta-analysis to evaluate the benefit among these nonpharmacological analgesia. Methods: According to the retrieval strategies, randomized controlled trials on nonpharmacological analgesia delivery will be obtained from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang,SinoMed, PubMed, Web of science, Embase, and Cochrane Library, regardless of publication date or language. Studies were screened based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the Cochrane risk bias assessment tool will be used to evaluate the quality of the literature. The network meta-analysis will be performed in Markov Chain Monte Carlo method and carried out with Stata14 and OpenBUGS14 software. Ultimately, the evidentiary grade for the results will be evaluated. Results: This study will provide more reasonable choice for clinic than the effect of nonpharmacological analgesia in parturient delivery. Conclusion: Our findings will provide references for future guidance developing and clinical decision. INPLASY registration number: INPLASY202080097.