Use of nasal clips as first aid for anterior epistaxis.

A short systematic review was undertaken to establish whether the use of a nasal clip is superior to manual compression as first aid in patients presenting to the ED with epistaxis. A systematic keyword search of EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane and Google Scholar databases returned two relevant papers. The author, year, country of publication, patient group studied, study type, key findings and weaknesses are tabulated. Our results suggest that nasal clips are an effective intervention for first aid in epistaxis, although larger prospective studies are required to fully address this clinical question.