Assessing the Impact of Interdisciplinary Multimodal Pain Treatment on Health-Related Quality of Life in Chronic...

Chronic pain lowers health-related quality of life (HRQoL). This review presents the most complete examination to date of how Interdisciplinary Multimodal Pain Treatment (IMPT) affects domains of HRQoL in adults with chronic pain. We compared IMPT with treatment as usual (TAU) and active control groups (ACGs) at short, intermediate and long-term follow-up.

We searched EBSCO, Embase, Cochrane, Google Scholar, Web of Science, ASSIA, Dimensions and CORE from inception to December 2024. We included RCTs and quasi-RCTs of IMPTs reporting HRQoL outcomes. Pre- and post-intervention means were extracted; comparable subscales were combined into amalgamated domains. Random-effects meta-analyses of standardised mean differences were conducted. Risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane ROB 1, and evidence quality was rated using GRADE. Sensitivity analyses addressed heterogeneity and study quality.

Forty-one articles (N = 6613) informed 39 meta-analyses. Sample sizes ranged from n = 10 to n = 703. IMPTs showed small positive effects versus TAU for Physical Functioning at short and long follow-up, and for Pain, General Health and Emotional Functioning at all follow-up points. Exploratory analyses found benefits for Pain versus ACG at short and intermediate follow-up, Vitality versus TAU and Social Functioning versus both comparators. Heterogeneity was high and evidence quality was very low.

This study adds support and novel evidence regarding the continued use of IMPTs to improve domains of HRQoL in chronic pain. Findings suggest broader benefits than previously reported. Future research should develop methodological designs to improve evidence quality and support deeper insights going forward.

This is the first review to compare Interprofessional Multimodal Pain Therapy (IMPT) with treatment-as-usual (TAU) and active control groups (ACG) across all Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) domains for chronic pain, with short, intermediate and long-term follow-up, adjusting for intervention duration. Findings provide evidence of IMPT's superiority over TAU for physical and emotional functioning, pain and general health. Novel findings show benefits over both TAU and ACG for social functioning, over TAU for vitality and over ACG for pain.