E-Health Interventions for Managing Spine Pain—Benefits for Pain, Quality of Life, Catastrophizing and Fear Avoidance Beliefs: An Overview of Systematic Reviews With Meta-Analysis

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the effectiveness of eHealth interventions for improving pain, physical disability, psychological factors, and the quality of life for people with spine pain. DESIGN: Overview of systematic reviews. LITERATURE SEARCH: CINAHL, Embase, PubMed, and SPORTDiscus e-databases were searched. STUDY SELECTION CRITERIA: Systematic reviews with meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials evaluating any type of eHealth were included. DATA SYNTHESIS: AMSTAR 2 was used to assess the methodological quality of included reviews. The degree of overlap between reviews was calculated. RESULTS: Sixteen systematic reviews were included. Of them, thirteen reviews were exclusively focused on back pain or low back pain. Exercise and psychological interventions were the primary contents of eHealth interventions. In general, eHealth interventions based on physical exercise may improve the quality of life of people with low back pain. eHealth interventions based on cognitive behavioral therapy may reduce pain catastrophizing and fear-avoidance beliefs for physical activity for people with low back pain. eHealth interventions based on multidisciplinary approaches including physical exercise may reduce low back pain. Few systematic reviews used the GRADE system to evaluate the certainty of evidence, and few specified the content of eHealth interventions. CONCLUSION: eHealth interventions may improve the quality of life, pain catastrophizing, fear-avoidance beliefs, for people with low back pain. It is unclear, based on available systematic reviews, how clinicians should deliver eHealth interventions for people with spine pain (e.g., neck pain or low back pain).