• Lawrence Leung, Han Han, Mary Martin, and Jyoti Kotecha.
• Department of Family Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada Centre of Studies in Primary Care, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada School of Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
• BMJ Open. 2015 May 18; 5 (5): e007650.

IntroductionChronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) affects up to 50% of the world's population. It impacts negatively on quality of life; entailing high costs on our medical systems, and translates to economic burden due to work loss. Aetiology of CNCP is complex and multifactorial, embracing the somatosensory, cognitive and affective domains. Opioid analgesia and other invasive interventions are often inadequate for clinical management of CNCP. Recently, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has become a popular therapy for various medical conditions, including CNCP. However, studies reported varying efficacies, and relevant systematic reviews have included clinical trials with inherent heterogeneity either in study conditions or types of interventions used. Our study aims to provide an updated and more critical evaluation of the efficacy of MBSR as the intervention for non-somatisation CNCP.Methods And AnalysisA systematic review with meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials published in English will be performed in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and the Cochrane Collaboration format. MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychINFO, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials Intervention, will be searched independently by reviewers using defined MeSH terms. Studies with full texts using MBSR as the main intervention on patients with non-somatising CNCP will be included. Outcome measures include pain scores and disability assessment scales. Continuous data will be meta-analysed using the RevMan 5 Review Manager programme. Primary analysis will adopt the random effects model in view of heterogeneity between trials. The standardised mean difference will be expressed as the effect size with 95% CIs. Forest plots, funnel plots, the I(2) statistic and the Cochrane Risks of Bias Assessment table will be included.Ethics And DisseminationNo ethics approval is deemed necessary. Results of this study will be disseminated via peer-reviewed publications and scientific meetings.Trials Registration NumberPROSPERO CRD42014015568.Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

16 keywords...

hide…