SynthesisEuropean journal of pain (London, England)2026
A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Examining the Effect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction on Pain Severity and Quality of Life in People Living With Fibromyalgia.
Synthesis in European journal of pain (London, England), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Examining the Effect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction on Pain Severity and Quality of Life in People Living With Fibromyalgia.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Pooled it
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectiveThis systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the effect of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on pain severity, quality of life, pain catastrophising, and depression for people living with Fibromyalgia (FM) at short and long term follow up. DATABASES AND DATA TREATMENT: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO Trial Registry, CINAHL and PsychInfo were searched from inception to December 2025 for English language full papers. Randomised and non-randomised trials were included where MBSR was compared with no treatment, usual care or any active control; online MBSR interventions were excluded.
resultsThe search identified 566 records, of which 11 original trials and 1153 participants were included, 1097 of whom were women. A predefined risk of bias tool was used to assess included studies. Fixed effect model meta-analysis showed improvements in favour of MBSR compared with active controls at long term follow up in quality of life (SMD -0.2635 [95% CI -0.4725, -0.0545]) and pain catastrophising (SMD -0.5375 [95% CI -0.8323, -0.2428]). Significant effects on pain severity (SMD -0.2966 [95% CI -0.4939, -0.0992]) and depression (SMD -0.4452 [95% CI -0.6502, -0.2402]) were only present at short term follow up versus passive control. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) determined the certainty of outcomes ranging from very low to moderate.
conclusionsMBSR improves pain catastrophising and quality of life in people with FM at short and long term follow up; pain severity and depression were not significantly alleviated versus active control. OSF Registration: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/TJ5HX. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: This meta-analysis reveals that, among individuals living with fibromyalgia, mindfulness based stress reduction does not significantly reduce pain severity, updating the guidance from the last review in 2013. Mindfulness based stress reduction does however have a small positive effect on quality of life compared with other active treatments, at both short and long term follow up. This suggests there is a long lasting, mindfulness specific mechanism that improves quality of life.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.