Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Occupational Therapy for Stroke Recovery

22 randomized controlled trials involving 2,833 stroke patients were analyzed to evaluate the effects of occupational therapy. The meta-analysis, conducted by Jie Bai and published in April 2026, found significant improvements in upper limb function, daily living ability, and depressive symptoms. The review protocol was registered with PROSPERO (CRD420251122701).

Use Cases

• Evaluating the efficacy of occupational therapy for upper limb motor recovery based on the reported standardized mean differences.
• Assessing the impact of rehabilitation on activities of daily living (ADL) based on the aggregated results from 22 RCTs.
• Analyzing the effect of intervention duration on outcomes based on the subgroup analysis for programs longer than 8 weeks.
• Comparing different occupational therapy types or settings based on the subgroup analyses mentioned in the results.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on 22 randomized controlled trials, a substantial evidence base.
• Results include standardized mean differences with 95% confidence intervals and p-values for three key outcomes.
• The review followed a registered protocol (PROSPERO CRD420251122701) and used Cochrane and GRADE tools for assessment.
• Sensitivity and subgroup analyses were performed to examine result stability and moderating factors.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 3.9 MB DOCX file; the underlying trial-level data is not provided in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the underlying trial data is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for direct analysis.

Provenance

Source

Systematic review and meta-analysis by Jie Bai, published on figshare.

Collection Method

Literature search across eight English and Chinese databases for RCTs up to August 2025, with meta-analysis conducted in RevMan 5.4 and Stata 18.0.

Time Range

Literature search covered studies up to August 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-23 04:15:17; freshness should be verified.

Geography

The review searched Chinese and English databases, suggesting a likely international scope for the included trials.