A systematic review of effectiveness of interventions applicable to radiotherapy that are administered to improve patient comfort, increase patient compliance, and reduce patient distress or anxiety.

The aim of this review was to search existing literature to identify comfort interventions that can be used to assist an adult patient to undergo complex radiotherapy requiring positional stability for periods greater than 10 min. The objectives of this review were to; 1) identify comfort interventions used for clinical procedures that involve sustained inactivity similar to radiotherapy; 2) define characteristics of comfort interventions for future practice; and 3) determine the effectiveness of identified comfort interventions. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and meta-analyses statement and the Template-for-Intervention-Description-and Replication guide were used.