This overview of systematic reviews summarised evidence on the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of antidepressants for 26 pain conditions. No review presented high certainty evidence on the efficacy of antidepressants. Moderate certainty evidence supported the efficacy of SNRIs, mostly duloxetine at median doses of 60-120 [...]
Most studies investigating the prognosis of low back pain (LBP) enrol people presenting for care, rather than all people who have an episode of LBP. We aimed to describe the prognosis of an acute episode of LBP in a community inception cohort.
What are the effects of diagnostic labels and advice, and interactions between labels and advice, on perceived need for shoulder surgery for rotator cuff disease?
Spinal cord stimulators are used to treat intractable pain. Placebo-controlled trials of spinal cord stimulators typically involve short-term treatment and follow-up, so long-term safety and efficacy are unclear. The aim of the study was to describe the adverse events relating to spinal cord stimulators reported to the [...]
Understanding barriers and enablers to monitoring and deprescribing opioids will enable the development of tailored interventions to improve both practices. To perform a qualitative evidence synthesis of the barriers and enablers to monitoring ongoing appropriateness and deprescribing of opioids for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) and [...]
ED visits for low back pain are increasing, but the lack of specific guidance for emergency physicians impedes evidence-based care, and adopting primary care recommendations may not be appropriate. The ED sees a different spectrum of low back pain presentations, where physicians are likely to [...]
Deprescribing is the process of reducing or discontinuing unnecessary or harmful medicines. To address the ‘opioid epidemic’, clinical practice guidelines now discourage the initial prescription of opioid analgesics for chronic non-cancer pain and strategies such as the introduction of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs may reduce [...]
Prof Chris Maher talks to Channel 10's The Project about how one of the most popular prescribed pain meds can have alarming side effects.
This paper aimed to evaluate the effects of information format on intentions to request diagnostic imaging for non-specific low back pain in members of the public. It found that framing information to emphasise potential harms from overdiagnosis reduced intention to request diagnostic imaging for low [...]
The 2018 Lancet Low Back Pain Series, comprising 3 papers written by 31 authors from disparate disciplines and 12 different countries, raised unprecedented awareness of the rising global burden of low back pain partly attributable to poor quality health care. Many people with low back [...]