Home »   Print

Chest physiotherapy in paediatric patients hospitalised with community-acquired pneumonia: a randomised clinical trial (October, 2012)
ABSTRACT:
 
This clinical trial suggests that, in children hospitalised with moderate community–acquired pneumonia, chest physiotherapy did not have clinical benefits in comparison to control group.
 
Methods:
 
•Children (aged 1–12 years) with a clinical and confirmed radiological diagnosis of pneumonia sequentially admitted to a tertiary children hospital were eligible for this study.
•Participants were randomly selected to receive a standardised respiratory physiotherapy (positioning, thoracic vibration, thoracic compression, positive expiratory pressure, breathing exercises and forced exhalation with the glottis open or 'huffing’) three times daily in the 'intervention group’ or a non-mandatory request to breathe deeply, expectorate the sputum and maintain a lateral body position once a day in the 'control group’.
•The primary outcomes were reduction in respiratory rate and severity score (respiratory rate, recession, fever, oxygen saturation and chest x-ray) from baseline to discharge. Secondary outcome was duration of hospitalisation.
 
Results:
 
•In all, 72 patients were randomly allocated to the intervention (n=35) or control (n=37) groups.
•There were no differences at admission on severity of pneumonia between groups.
•Respiratory rate and severity score significant decreased between admission to discharge within each group; however, there were no differences when comparing groups.
•Also, there was no significant difference in duration of hospitalisation between the control and intervention groups (6 vs 8 days, p=0.11, respectively).
 
Reference: