Efficacy of Therapeutic Patient Education for Managing Subacute and Chronic Musculoskeletal Conditions: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of therapeutic patient education delivered by a health care provider, either alone or in combination with other rehabilitation interventions, for reducing pain and disability in adults with subacute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions. DESIGN: Intervention systematic review with meta-analysis. LITERATURE SEARCH: Five databases were searched from 2005 to 2025. STUDY SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) evaluating the efficacy of therapeutic patient education in adults with subacute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions, compared to other interventions such as exercise programs. Outcomes included pain, disability, quality of life, kinesiophobia, and catastrophizing. DATA SYNTHESIS: Treatment effects were estimated using random-effects models with standardized mean differences. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane RoB 2.0 tool. Certainty of evidence was evaluated using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) framework. RESULTS: Sixty-nine RCTs were included, and 56 contributed data to meta-analyses (n = 6773 participants; mean age, 43.1 ± 10.3 years; 63% female). Adding therapeutic patient education to other interventions likely reduced pain, disability, and catastrophizing in the short term (moderate-certainty evidence), may reduce pain and disability in the medium term (low-certainty evidence), and likely resulted in a large reduction in kinesiophobia in the short and medium terms (moderate-certainty evidence). The efficacy of therapeutic patient education as a stand-alone intervention was uncertain. CONCLUSION: Evidence supports using therapeutic patient education, in combination with other rehabilitation interventions, to reduce pain, disability, kinesiophobia, and catastrophizing in adults with subacute and chronic musculoskeletal conditions. The magnitude of the effects may vary from small to large. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 2025;55(10):623-648. Epub 20 August 2025. doi:10.2519/jospt.2025.13247
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.020 | 0.053 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.022 | 0.043 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".