Review Article The Effects of Integrative In-Patient Treatment on Patients’ Quality of Life: A Meta-Analysis

Copyright © 2013 Thomas Ostermann et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. In the last decades, several hospitals have adopted this concept of integrative medicine for the treatment of chronic and acute states of illnesses in in-patient treatment. The aim of this paper was to summarize the current evidence for a possible effectiveness of integrative on-patient treatment in patients ’ quality of life by means of a meta-analysis. Material and Methods. The databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, AMED, PsycInfo, PsycLit CCMED, and CAMbase were screened to find articles. We also screened publisher databases to find relevant information. Articles were included if patients were treated in a hospital. To guarantee comparability SF-36 was the predefined outcome measure for patients ’ quality of life. Data of pre/posteffects on the mental and physical scores of the SF-36 were extracted and effect sizes were calculated and entered into a random effect meta-analysis. Results. Eight articles published between 2003 and 2010 were included in the final meta-analysis. Random effect meta-analysis of the eight studies revealed an overall effect size of 0.37 (95%CI: [0.28; 0.45]) in the physical score and 0.38 (95%CI: [0.30; 0.45]) in the mental score of the SF-36