ABSTRACT
Objective The article is prepared to evaluate the efficacy of Chinese acupressure and ventral massage on prevention and treatment of constipation.Methods Electronic databases such as CNKI,VIP,CBM,Wanfang,EBSCO,PubMed and the Cochrane Library were searched from their establishment to December 2013 to meet the inclusion criteria of randomized and quasi-randomized controlled trials.Meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.2 and Stata 12.0 software.Results A total of 29 RCTs involving 3 084 participants were included.The Meta analysis showed that compared with the control group,the new option for prevention and treatment tended to be more effective for constipation.Compared with the control group,first defecation time,defecation difficulty rate,defecation time,dry stool rate and defecating unfinished feeling rate of the experimental group were lower.Laxative provided for the experimental group was less than that of the control group.Conclusions On the basis of available evidence,the traditional Chinese acupressure and ventral massage treatment are effective and safe in prevention and treatment of constipation.