Effect of different intervention measures on duration of mechanical ventilation and the length of ICU stay in critically ill patients: a network Meta-analysis

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To evaluate the effects of different intervention measures on duration of mechanical ventilation and the length of intensive care unit (ICU) stay in critically ill patients using network Meta-analysis. Randomized controlled trial (RCT) on the effects of different intervention measures on duration of mechanical ventilation and the length of ICU stay in critically ill patients were systematically searched in PubMed, Embase, China Biomedical Literature Database, CNKI, and other databases. The search time limit was from the establishment of the database to November 2023. Literature screening, quality assessment, and data extraction were independently conducted by two researchers. Network Meta-analysis was employed to assess the effects of each intervention on duration of mechanical ventilation and the length of ICU stay, and funnel plots were generated. A total of 37 RCTs were included, involving 3 977 severe patients, 2 041 in the intervention group and 1 936 in the control group. Thirteen types of interventions were analyzed, including usual care (UC), early activity (EA), early comprehensive rehabilitation (ECR), early pulmonary rehabilitation (EPR), cluster intervention strategy (CS), sedation, analgesia and cluster nursing (SACN), music therapy (MT), neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES), modified education and visitation (MV), virtual reality (VR), auricular point sticking (APS), acupoint acupuncture (AA), and concerted intervention (COR). Network Meta-analysis showed that MV significantly better than COR [standardized mean difference (SMD) = -2.35, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was -4.30 to -0.39], EPR (SMD = -2.59, 95%CI was -4.81 to -0.37), and UC (SMD = -4.10, 95%CI was -5.71 to -2.49) in improving duration of mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients. COR was significantly better than UC in shortened length of ICU stay (SMD = -5.72, 95%CI was -10.07 to -1.37). The efficacy ranking results showed that for duration of mechanical ventilation, the surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) was highest for MV (85.4%) and EA (85.4%), followed by AA (74.9%), NMES (63.1%), ECR (51.7%), CS (48.8%), SACN (34.3%), COR (29.4%), EPR (26.1%), and UC (0.7%). For the length of ICU stay, COR had the highest SUCRA (82.3%), followed by APS (79.7%), MV (77.7%), EPR (68.0%), NMES (57.6%), CS (54.4%), ECR (51.1%), SACN (41.9%), MT (39.8%), EA (39.3%), AA (33.0%), VR (15.4%), and UC (9.8%). The funnel plot results of ICU stay showed that the publication bias between studies were relatively small. MV and COR appear to be effective interventions for reducing mechanical ventilation time and ICU stay in critically ill patients. However, due to the number and quality of included studies, these findings require confirmation through additional high-quality research.