OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness of communicative and educative strategies on (1) patient's low back pain awareness/knowledge, (2) maladaptive behavior modification and (3) compliance with exercise in patients with chronic low back pain. METHODS: A systematic review was conducted. Searches were performed on 13 databases. Only randomized controlled trials enrolling patients >= 18 years of age were included. Risk of bias was assessed with the Cochrane Collaboration's tool and interrater agreement between authors for full-texts selection was evaluated with Cohen's Kappa. No meta-analysis was performed and qualitative analysis was conducted. RESULTS: 24 randomized controlled trials which intervention included communicative and educative strategies were selected. Most of the studies were judged as low risk of bias and Cohen's Kappa was excellent (K = 0.822). Interventions addressed were cognitive behavioral therapy as unique treatment or combined with other treatments (multimodal interventions), coaching, mindfulness, pain science education, self-management, graded activity and graded exposure. CONCLUSIONS, PRACTICE IMPLICATION: Patient's low back pain awareness/knowledge is still a grey area of literature. Pain science education, graded exposure and multimodal interventions are the most effective for behavior modification and compliance with exercise with benefits also in the long-term, while self-management, graded activity and coaching provide only short-term or no benefits.
With permission from Excerpta Medica Inc.

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