A systematic review was undertaken to determine if cervical pillows are effective in decreasing neck pain. A comprehensive search of relevant electronic databases was conducted from the earliest time available to May 2005 using the terms pillow, cervical pillow, neck support, neck pain, cervical pain and neck ache. Additional articles were identified through citation tracking. Articles were included if the participants complained of neck pain and the effect of a cervical pillow on their neck pain had been assessed using an outcome measure for pain. Articles were excluded if the participants had received concurrent therapy or their neck pain was due to a systemic disease, Articles were assessed for quality using the PEDro scale. Of 127 articles identified, 5 articles of low quality met the selection criteria. There was not enough evidence to conclude if cervical pillows reduce chronic neck pain. Further research using high quality randomised controlled trials is required.

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A brief summary and a critical assessment of this review may be available at DARE