Effect of Acupressure on Pain Severity and Vital Signs in Coronary Artery Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Introduction Pain, a common symptom of coronary artery disease (CAD), changes physiological parameters, which can aggravate ischemia and increase cardiac workload. Acupressure, as a complementary therapy, can be beneficial by relieving pain and modulating vital signs. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine the effect of acupressure on pain severity and physiological parameters in patients with CAD. Methods A systematic search of randomized controlled trials in PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane databases was conducted to investigate the effect of acupressure on pain and vital signs in adult CAD patients, following the PRISMA-2020 guideline. The quality assessment of the included studies was conducted using the RoB-2. A DerSimonian and Laird random effects model was undertaken using Stata-17.0 software. Results A total of 9 studies (857 patients) were included in the meta-analysis. At the time of measuring the results immediately after the intervention, acupressure had a statistically significant effect on reducing systolic blood pressure (SBP), heart rate (HR), and pain severity, with the mean difference of MD=-3.66, 95% CI (-5.44, -1.87) and MD=-2.46, 95% CI (-3.29, -1.64) and MD=-0.24, 95% CI (-0.42, -0.07) respectively. However, the results of diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and respiratory rate (RR) measurements were not significantly different. HR was also measured 30 minutes after the intervention in two studies. Based on the meta-analysis, acupressure did not significantly reduce HR 30 minutes after the intervention. Conclusion Acupressure can be a useful, non-pharmacological, and simple method in short-term reducing of pain severity, HR, and SBP, along with pharmacological management. However, the overall certainty of evidence and number of included studies are low, indicating a need for further high-quality research for a more certain conclusion.