Comparing Manual and Automatic Colonic Massage for Chronic Constipation.

Retrieval Strategy * Computer retrieval of clinical literature on abdominal massage for constipation published between 1990 and December 2024 will be conducted in: * NCBI PubMed. * Research Gate. * Google Scholar. * Ovid. * English retrieval terms included: colon, abdominal, constipation, bowel function, transit time, massage, and device. * A cross-retrieval will be conducted to screen the literature that met the inclusion criteria. Literature screening and data extraction * The literature search will be independently performed by two researchers. * Identified studies will be imported into EndNote×9 and Mendeley for organization. * Articles will be evaluated based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. * Duplicates from various databases will be removed. * Clearly irrelevant articles will be excluded based on their titles and abstracts. * Full texts of the remaining studies will be thoroughly reviewed, and those that met the criteria will be included. * The final dataset will be cross-verified. * Discrepancies will be resolved through discussion or by involving a third researcher with a PhD for arbitration. * Extracted data included: * First author's name * Publication year * Study type * Sample size * Participant gender and age * Interventions in both experimental and control groups * Treatment duration and frequency * Primary and secondary study outcomes * Quality assessment of the studies * Study characteristics, along with the study design, description of interventions (type of colon massage applied), and indices of evaluated results, will be organized using an Excel-based data extraction form. Quality evaluation * Quality assessment of the literature will be conducted using the "risk of bias" tool recommended by the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews (Rob2.0 and Robins-E). These tools evaluate various bias domains, including randomization, deviations from intended interventions, missing data, outcome measurement, and selective reporting. Each domain will be rated as having a high, unclear, or low risk of bias. * Disagreements between the two researchers regarding the literature's conclusions will be resolved through discussion or by a third researcher.