..To investigate the effectiveness of therapies for reducing pain and improving quality of life (QOL) in people with fibromyalgia..
..A total of 224 trials including 29 962 participants were included. High-quality evidence was found in favor of cognitive behavioral therapy (weighted mean difference [WMD], −0.9; 95% CI, −1.4 to −0.3) for pain in the short term and was found in favor of central nervous system depressants (WMD, −1.2 [95% CI, −1.6 to −0.8]) and antidepressants (WMD, −0.5 [95% CI, −0.7 to −0.4]) for pain in the medium term.
There was also high-quality evidence in favor of antidepressants (WMD, −6.8 [95% CI, −8.5 to −5.2]) for QOL in the short term and in favor of central nervous system depressants (WMD, −8.7 [95% CI, −11.3 to −6.0]) and antidepressants (WMD, −3.5 [95% CI, −4.5 to −2.5]) in the medium term. However, these associations were small and did not exceed the minimum clinically important change (2 points on an 11-point scale for pain and 14 points on a 101-point scale for QOL). Evidence for long-term outcomes of interventions was lacking.
Conclusions and Relevance This systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that most of the currently available therapies for the management of fibromyalgia are not supported by high-quality evidence. Some therapies may reduce pain and improve QOL in the short to medium term, although the effect size of the associations might not be clinically important to patients.
