Papers of the Week

Chronic primary musculoskeletal pain (CPMP) is one subcategory of the new classification of chronic primary pain for the upcoming ICD-11, defined as chronic pain in the muscles, bones, joints, or tendons that persists or recurs for more than 3 months and is associated with significant emotional distress or functional disability. An array of pharmacological, psychological, physical, complementary, and rehabilitative interventions is available for CPMP, for which previous research has demonstrated varying effect sizes with regard to effectiveness in pain reduction and other main outcomes. This highlights the need for the synthesis of all available evidence. The proposed network meta-analysis will compare all available interventions for CPMP to determine the best treatment option(s) with a focus on efficacy and safety of interventions.