Background: The impaired physical capacity of children and adolescents with HIV can directly influence their physical performance, activities of daily living and social participation. The purpose of this systematic review protocol is to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis on physical fitness (cardiorespiratory capacity, agility, flexibility, strength, and muscular endurance) in children and adolescents with HIV, compared with healthy controls.
Methods: We will be following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis protocol (PRISMA-P) statement guidelines. There will be cross-sectional, longitudinal and case-controlled studies, and there will be no restrictions on language and year of publication in the search. The search strategy will be to use databases including: MEDLINE (via PubMed), EMBASE (via Ovid), Web of Science, Scopus, SportDiscus and CINAHL; The MeSH terms will be: physical fitness, fitness trackers, agility, flexibility, physical endurance, muscle strength, aerobic capacity, human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, children, and adolescents, to discuss and compare physical fitness (cardiorespiratory capacity, agility, flexibility, strength, and muscular endurance) in children and adolescents with HIV and healthy control. The reviewers will independently read the articles, extract the data information and analyze the risk of bias using the Cochrane criteria for observational studies. The Cohen's will be used to calculate the agreement between the revisions.
Results: This study will provide a high-quality synthesis of observational studies on the analysis and comparison of physical fitness in children and adolescents with HIV compared with healthy controls.
Conclusion: This systematic review will be very important for the creation of proposals aimed at providing high quality subsidies in the management of HIV during the development phase of children and adolescents.
Ethics and dissemination: Ethics approval is not required because individual patient data and privacy were not involved in this study.
Prospero registration number: CRD42019140955.
Prospero registration date: 23/09/2019.