Effect of global postural re-education on patients with neck pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the effect of global postural re-education (GPR) compared to other exercise programs on pain and disability in patients with neck pain.

A systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out using PRISMA2020. Literature was searched on the databases PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Google Scholar and PEDro from January 2000 to April 2024. The search was limited to English only. Experimental Studies that analysed neck pain, disability and other patient-reported outcomes were included in this review. Meta-analyses of the nine included studies were conducted for the outcome pain and seven studies were included for the disability. Cochrane's risk of bias tool version 2 was used to assess the risk of bias in the included studies and the quality of evidence was assessed using PEDro.

Nine studies were included in the systematic review, resulting in the total sample size of 503 patients with neck pain. Meta-analysis was performed for the outcome pain and disability. The results showed improvement in pain measured by Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) (Standardised Mean Difference (SMD) = -0.41; 95 % Confidence Interval (CI), -0.59 to -0.22; p < 0.0001), and disability measured by Neck Disability Index (NDI) (SMD = -0.73; 95 % CI, -0.96 to -0.49; p < 0.0001) after GPR treatment.

GPR is an effective intervention for reducing pain, disability and improving range of motion and quality of life as compared to control groups and other interventions in patients with neck pain.