The effect of abdominal compression device on patients after external hernia repair surgery: A systematic review and...

To evaluate the effectiveness of abdominal compression devices after external hernia repair.

A search was conducted for randomized controlled trials on the application of abdominal compression devices after abdominal hernia repair surgery in databases such as Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMbase, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform. The retrieval deadline was from the establishment of the database to November 2024. Two researchers independently assessed the risk of bias of the included studies and extracted relevant data using pre designed tables. RevMan 5.4 software was used for statistical analysis.

Ten articles were included, with a total of 1081 patients undergoing abdominal hernia repair surgery. The systematic review and meta-analysis results showed no statistically significant difference in the incidence of wound infection (relative risk [RR] = 0.41, P > .05), wound bleeding (RR = 0.56, P > .05), perineal hematoma (RR = 0.93, P > .05), or wound infection (RR = 0.40, P > .05). In terms of pain, subgroup analysis was performed to determine the incidence of wound infection (RR = 0.41), wound bleeding (RR = 0.56, P > .05), perineal hematoma (RR = 0.93, P > .05), and recurrence (RR = 0.70, P > .05) between the compression group and non-compression group. In terms of pain, subgroup analysis showed that the postoperative use of abdominal bands to compress the surgical area could reduce pain (mean difference [MD] = -1.17, P < .01), while the use of sandbags was not recommended, while the use of sandbags to compress the surgical area increased pain (MD = 1.09, P < .01).

After abdominal hernia repair surgery, the use of abdominal compression devices had no significant effect on reducing the incidence of serum swelling, wound infection, and recurrence compared to the method of removing compression. After abdominal hernia repair surgery, the use of abdominal compression devices had no significant effect on reducing the incidence of serum swelling, wound infection, and recurrence compared to the method of removing compression. Abdominal band compression has a significant effect on reducing pain, whereas sandbag compression can increase pain.