Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Infection with human immunodeficency virus HIV and acquired immunodeficency syndrome AIDS is a pandemic that has affected millions of people globally.
Although major research and clinical initiatives are addressing prevention and cure strategies, issues of quality of life for survivors have received less attention. Massage therapy is proposed to have a positive effect on quality of life and may also have a positive effect on immune function through stress mediation. We also reviewed relevant published and unpublished conference abstracts and proceedings and scrutinised reference lists from pertinent journals.
There were no language or date restrictions. Two reviewers independently identified included studies and extracted relevant data. Two other reviewers independently reviewed the included studies for risk of bias.
Twelve papers were identified, from which four were included. The remaining eight papers were excluded predominantly due to inappropriate methodology. The settings were either community or palliative care, and the outcome measures were a combination of quality of life and immunological function.
The trials were judged to be at moderate risk of bias mostly because of incomplete reporting. For quality of life measures, the studies reported that massage therapy in combination with other modalities, such as meditation and stress reduction, are superior to massage therapy alone or to the other modalities alone.
