Meta-Analysis of Intermittent vs. Continuous Enteral Nutrition in Critically Ill Patients

An updated systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 randomized controlled trials comprising 1,662 critically ill patients, published on figshare in 2026. The study compares intermittent and continuous enteral nutrition strategies, analyzing outcomes like mortality, gastrointestinal complications, and ICU length of stay. The work was authored by Shu Zhang and is licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Use Cases

• Comparing the incidence of diarrhea and abdominal distension between feeding strategies based on the reported risk ratios.
• Analyzing the effect on ICU length of stay based on the reported mean difference of 0.91 days.
• Investigating subgroup differences in outcomes for mechanically ventilated versus non-ventilated patients as described in the results.
• Evaluating the comparative effects on constipation rates based on the reported risk ratio of 0.74.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on 22 randomized controlled trials, a substantial evidence base for a meta-analysis.
• Includes data from 1,662 individual patient records (816 IEN, 846 CEN).
• Reports specific statistical measures like risk ratios and mean differences with 95% confidence intervals for key outcomes.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 31.8 KB DOCX document, which is a very small text summary and not the underlying trial data.
• Row count and column-level documentation for any underlying data are unknown, limiting suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality and structure require manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Systematic literature review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials from PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library.

Time Range

Literature search covered from database inception through December 10, 2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-21 04:23:01; freshness should be verified.