PAIN NEUROSCIENSE EDUCATION FOR THE ADULTS WITH CHRONICMUSCULOSKELETAL PAIN: A MIXED-METHODS SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META ANALYSIS

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE:

Pain neuroscience education (PNE) has been touted as an effective intervention for the clinical outcome measures of pain intensity and disability for chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) across a number of different musculoskeletal issues. The aim of PNE is to reconceptualise pain as less threatening, with the main topic being the peripheral and central anatomy and physiology involved in the experience of pain. Alternative names for this type of education include “Explain pain” and “Therapeutic neuroscience education”. The main review question for this paper was “How effective is PNE as an intervention for the management of adults with CMP?”.

METHODS

This was a mixed methods review with 12 randomized controlled trials (n = 755) that reported pain, disability and psychosocial outcomes, and four qualitative studies (n = 50) that explored patients’ experience of PNE. This paper included patients that had musculoskeletal pain for over 3 months duration and excluded patients with non-musculoskeletal pain such as cancer and visceral pain. Quality scores from the 12 RCTs ranged from 1-6 out of a score of 7.

RESULTS

Pain relief: Short term pain relief was 3.20/100mm for the PNE group, well under the minimal clinically important change (MCIC) of between 15-20mm for pain (1). Although this paper does discuss 10mm as being clinically important in line with the

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