Effectiveness of pain medication tapering in chronic pain patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Pooled result · Overall effect of taperingResult — go to the resultOverall effect size 0.917 95% CI 0.61–1.22Authors' conclusion
This systematic review revealed a broad range of outcome measures affected by tapering.
Study context
- Population
- Adults with chronic noncancer pain undergoing pain medication tapering57 studies
- Comparison
- After vs before pain medication tapering
- Outcome
- Overall effect of tapering
Methodological detailsrandom-effect three-level meta-analysis
- Random-effect three-level meta-analysis
Pooled result
As reported in the abstract
Overall effect size
0.917
95% CI 0.61–1.22
P < 0.001
Further pooled results
Individual outcome measures after tapering
- Significant improvement in pain intensity, headache disability, headache days/month, anxiety, depression, pills consumed/month, days with medication intake/month, pain catastrophising and pain interference
- No significant effect on physical functioning, mental health-related quality of life, opioid use, pain self-efficacy and physical health-related quality of life
Risk of bias of included studies
- Poor quality
- 30
- Fair quality
- 24
- Good quality
- 3
Original publication
Effectiveness of pain medication tapering in chronic pain patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Anaesth. Published 2 October 2024. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →