A systematic review on the type of treatment methods to reduce pain and improve wound healing in Iran

Episiotomy is the most common surgical intervention at the end of second stage of delivery and perineal pain is the most common complication of episiotomy. Since this pain affects the quality of life and relationships between the mother and baby, different studies have been conducted in order to expedite treatment of episiotomy wound healing and pain relief. Therefore, this study was performed with aim to have a systematic review on the studies performed to reduce episiotomy pain and improve wound healing in Iran.
In this systematic review, the related information were searched from databases of IRCT, Iranmedex, Magiran, Irandoc, Medlib, Google Scholar, SID, Proquest, Scopus, Pubmed and Science Direct with the keywords of “episiotomy, wound healing, perineum, pain” to December 2015. Then, the articles which obtained score of 3 or higher were entered to the study based on Jadad criteria. Moreover, data were analyzed qualitatively.
Finally, 36 clinical trials which met the inclusion criteria were evaluated. The surveys showed that the several methods were used to reduce the pain intensity and improve wound healing such as herbs (lavender, Curcuma, etc), chemical drugs (phenytoin and lidocaine, etc.) and non-pharmacological methods (cryotherapy and ...). Among all the interventions, Lavender, Olea europaea, Aloe vera, Curcuma and Cryotherapy led to greatest pain reduction and fastest recovery of episiotomy wound.
Lavender, Olea europaea, Aloe vera, Curcuma and Cryotherapy are the most effective treatments for episiotomy wound. However, more accurate studies with higher sample are required for definite judgment about the effectiveness of these interventions.