Massage therapy and therapeutic touch in children: state of the science

CRD COMMENTARY: This was a poorly reported review. The literature search was limited to publications in selected peer-reviewed journals, thus important studies may have been missed and the results may be subject to publication bias. The inclusion criteria were stated, but more details could have been provided. Very few details of the review process were reported, such as the methods used to assess the studies for inclusion and to extract the data, and study validity was not formally assessed. Details of the studies were tabulated, but these tables did not include information on study design. A narrative synthesis was appropriate in view of the heterogeneous nature of the studies, with respect to the patients and outcomes reported. However, the way in which the results were synthesised could have been improved. There was no indication of the magnitude of the effect of the intervention, as the authors only reported whether the studies found significant benefits. One of the major limitations of this review was the lack of an appropriate discussion of the study designs of the included studies. The designs of the studies in neonates were reported in the text, but these were not related to the study results. For studies in older children with medical conditions, there was no mention of the study designs used and so it is difficult to judge the validity of the results of these studies. The results and conclusions of the review should be interpreted with extreme caution due to the limitations discussed. The authors also present data on studies of therapeutic touch; however, this section of the review does not meet DARE quality criteria and so is not reported here.