Psychological Treatments for Chronic Pain in East and Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review

Background: Psychological treatments are recognised as generally effective for chronic pain. However, little is known about the evidence for psychological treatments for chronic pain in Asia.

Purpose: This study aimed (1) to identify all treatment outcome studies in the area of psychological approaches to chronic pain in adult populations of East Asia and Southeast Asia and (2) to evaluate the treatment types, the evidence for treatment outcomes and research design quality with regard to these studies.

Methods: We identified all psychologically based treatment outcome studies for chronic pain in East and Southeast Asia by searching CENTRAL, EMBASE, PsycINFO, MEDLINE (via Ovid), Global Health and Web of Science from the beginning of each abstracting service until December 2014 (week 4).

Results: Seventeen studies met inclusion criteria including a total of N = 1,890 participants. Four were randomised controlled trials (RCTs), five controlled clinical trials (CCTs) and eight cohort studies. Treatment outcomes included pain, disability, depression and anxiety. Overall, the studies included in this review showed small to medium within-group effect sizes for all four outcomes. A majority of the studies were rated as weak in design quality. Three RCTs were found to be of strong quality, one of moderate quality and only one CCT of moderate quality.

Conclusion: The current available literature on psychological treatments for chronic pain in East and Southeast Asia is generally small in scale, mostly preliminary and lags behind on some developments occurring in North America and Europe. Further development of treatment methods and research designs is warranted.