Trial reportEuropean journal of pain (London, England)2025
Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial of At-Home Virtual Reality for People With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain on the Waiting List.
Trial report in European journal of pain (London, England), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Physiotherapy with integrated virtual reality for patients with severe chronic low back pain: cluster-randomized controlled trial (VARIETY).BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2026Trial
- Cluster-Randomised Controlled Trial of At-Home Virtual Reality for People With Chronic Musculoskeletal Pain on the Waiting List.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Trial
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundVirtual reality (VR) has been introduced as a novel intervention in chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) rehabilitation. However, much remains unknown about the effectiveness of VR for CMP. The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of VR in daily life versus no treatment for people with CMP who were on a waiting list to receive secondary pain treatment.
methodsThis study employed a cluster-randomised, controlled design. The intervention group received a novel VR application that offers pain education and pain management techniques. This home-based, stand-alone, immersive VR intervention was advised to be used daily for four weeks. The control group received no treatment. Primary outcome measure was health-related quality of life at four weeks; secondary outcome measures included various pain-related variables (e.g., pain self-efficacy). Intervention effectiveness was analysed using linear mixed models.
resultsFifty-three participants were included in this trial (mean age: 55.5 (SD: 15)) of which 70% were women. No significant between-group differences were found at four weeks on physical (mean difference (95% CI): 0.039 (-2.810 to 2.889), p = 0.978) or mental (3.590 (-1.640 to 8.819), p = 0.172) health-related quality of life or any of the secondary outcome measures. DISCUSSION: The pain education VR intervention showed no effect in improving outcomes for people with CMP who were on a waiting list, compared to a no-intervention control group. Future research should investigate for which patients, settings, and timing this VR intervention could be beneficial. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Prior research showed that VR could be beneficial for people with CMP. However, the results of this study showed that VR is ineffective as stand-alone therapy for people with CMP who were on a waiting list to receive secondary pain treatment.
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