Relaxation techniques as an intervention for chronic pain: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Chronic pain increases the risk of sleep disturbances, depression and disability. Even though medical treatments have limited value, the use of prescription-based analgesics have increased over the recent years. It is therefore important to evaluate the effect of non-pharmacological treatments. A systematic search for studies evaluating the effect of relaxation techniques on chronic pain was conducted. Randomized controlled trials were included. Significant effects on pain, or on pain and one or more secondary outcome measure, were found in 21 studies. Four studies found significant effects on secondary outcome measures only. Four studies showed no significant effects on any outcome measure. Thus, most of the studies reported that relaxation techniques reduced pain and/or secondary outcome measures. However, the included studies have evaluated effects across a wide variety of chronic pain conditions and relaxation techniques. Hence, there is a large degree of heterogeneity among the included studies. This complicates the effect evaluation and makes it difficult to draw a clear and unambiguous conclusion. Relaxation techniques are probably most effective when used through regular and continued practice. Future studies should therefore investigate long-term effects of relaxation technique interventions, evaluate the dose-response relationship and examine efficacy differences across pain conditions and interventions.