Psychological Interventions for Chronic Pain: An Umbrella Review of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Randomized Controlled Trials

Background: There is a continuous increase in the number of studies showing that psychological interventions help reduce chronic pain. Systematic review studies that analyze the effect are also increasing. The aim of this umbrella review was to synthesise the best available research evidence for the effectiveness of standardised psychological interventon for adults with chronic pain.Methods: Using MEDLINE (PubMed) and Cochrane CENTRAL search engines, four systematic reviews met the study criteria, including 60 randomized control trials and 7,025 patients with chronic pain.Results: Compared to waiting control and treatment as usual, psychological interventions displayed medium effect sizes for pain intensity (SMD −0.35, CI −0.42 to −0.29, 4 reviews, N=4,061), pain disability (SMD −0.44, CI −0.51 to −0.36, 3 reviews, N=2,609), and physical functioning (SMD 0.38, CI 0.29 to 0.48, 2 reviews, N=1,699). Additionally, psychological interventions exhibited a medium effect size in reducing pain intensity (SMD −0.34, CI −0.42 to −0.26, 2 reviews, N=2,508) and pain disability (SMD −0.43, CI −0.51 to −0.35, 2 reviews, N=2,563) in chronic low back pain.Conclusions: The results reaffirm that psychological interventions, along with drug or conventional treatments, can be helpful in managing chronic pain.