Effects of hammock positioning on clinical parameters in preterm infants admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit: A systematic review

Abstract

Objective: To review the effects of the hammock positioning on clinical parameters of preterm newborn infants (PTNB) admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Data sources: This was a systematic review performed by searching the Pubmed, Lilacs, SciELO and PEDro databases. Intervention studies in English, Portuguese and Spanish that evaluated the effects of hammock positioning on clinical parameters of PTNB admitted to the NICU were selected. Three search strategies were used: 1) hammock positioning OR patient positioning AND intensive care units AND infant, newborn; 2) hammock positioning OR patient positioning AND intensive care units; 3) hammock positioning OR patient positioning AND intensive care units, neonatal. There was no restriction on the year of publication of the articles. Methodological quality was assessed by the PEDro scale. Data synthesis: Among 597 articles, only six were included and 139 neonates with gestational ages between 26 and 37 weeks and an average gestational weight <2240g were analyzed. Four studies included patients without any associated pathology and most of them placed the PTNB supine in hammock positioning. The duration of the intervention ranged from 15 to 180 minutes and most applied it at just one moment. There was an improvement in heart rate (HR), respiratory rate (RR) and pain (3/4 studies), as well as gains in peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) (2/4 studies). Onlyone study reported worsening of SpO2 with the intervention. The methodological quality of the studies was classified as low. Conclusions: Although this review suggests improvement with hammock positioning in HR, RR and pain in PTNB, the low methodological quality makes the results inconsistent.