Objective: Patient education is recommended as an integral component of the therapeutic plan for the management of chronic widespread pain (CWP) and fibromyalgia (FM). The key purpose of patient education is to increase the patient's competence to manage his or her own health requirements, encouraging self-management and a return to desired everyday activities and lifestyle. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the evidence for the benefits and potential harms associated with the use of patient education as a stand-alone intervention for individuals with CWP and FM through randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Method: On 24 November 2021 a systematic search of PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, CENTRAL, PsycINFO, CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov, American College of Rheumatology, European League Against Rheumatism, and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform identified 2069 studies. After full-text screening, five RCT studies were found to be eligible for the qualitative evidence synthesis.
Results: Patient education as a stand-alone intervention presented an improvement in patients' global assessment (standardized mean difference 0.79, 95% confidence interval 0.13 to 1.46). When comparing patient education with usual care, no intervention, or waiting list, no differences were found for functioning, level of pain, emotional distress in regard to anxiety and depression, or pain cognition.
Conclusion: This review reveals the need for RCTs investigating patient education as a stand-alone intervention for patients with FM, measuring outcomes such as disease acceptance, health-related quality of life, enhancement of patients' knowledge of pain, pain coping skills, and evaluation of prioritized learning outcomes.