Study designs of evaluations included in the review
Quantitative studies; no further restrictions on study design were reported.
Specific interventions included in the review
MT: duration of MT ranged from 15 minutes daily to 15-minute periods during 3 or 4 consecutive hours daily in neonates, and from 15 minutes daily twice a week to 30 minutes daily in children. Studies in neonates also investigated stroking for 5 to 7.5 minutes daily. All the controlled studies in neonates compared MT to standard nursing and medical care.
Participants included in the review
All studies in children were eligible for inclusion. Children included in the review were pre-term infants and children with depression, post traumatic stress, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, autism, asthma, atopic dermatitis and cystic fibrosis. Age of children (excluding pre-term infants) ranged from 2 to 16 years.
Outcomes assessed in the review
No inclusion criteria relating to outcomes were specified. Outcomes reported in studies of pre-term infants included in the review were polygraph readings, Brazelton Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale (BNBAS), weight, Thoman's sleep/wake state criteria, feeding, stooling, caloric intake, transcutaneous blood gas pressure, and days in hospital.
Outcomes reported in other children were depression (measured by the Profile of Mood States and CES-D scale), anxiety (measured by the State Trait Anxiety Inventory, Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, Behaviour Observation Scale), salivary cortisol levels, cooperation, nighttime sleep, mood state (measured by the Happy Faces Scale), emotional problems (measured by self-drawings), relaxation level (visual analogue scale), pain (Varni/Thompson Pain Questionnaire, Child and Parent forms), stiffness, measures of autism (touch aversion, off-task behaviour, orienting to irrelevant sounds, stereotypical behaviours, Autism Behaviour Checklist, Early Social Communication Scales activity), asthma measurements (vocalising, asthma attitude, peak air flow), clinical measures of dermatitis, and peak air flow in children with cystic fibrosis.
How were decisions on the relevance of primary studies made?
The authors do not state how the papers were selected for the review, or how many of the reviewers performed the selection.