Effectiveness of Self-Care Education for Chronic Neck Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Valenza Peña, Geraldine Martín-Núñez, Javier Heredia Ciuró, Alejandro Navas-Otero, Alba López López, Laura Valenza, Marie Carmen Cabrera Martos, Irene Chronic neck pain Self-care education program Systematic review Self-care programs for chronic neck pain are relevant to everyday life and can lead to longterm improvement. More studies on their effectiveness, key components and appropriate duration are needed. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of self-care programs for patients with chronic neck pain. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines. After searching in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and ScienceDirect, eleven studies met the inclusion criteria. Self-care education interventions typically consisted of education (i.e., pain neuro-science education or general educational concepts) accompanied by exercise or manual therapy. The most frequent components were addressing physical and psychological symptoms and engaging in self-care strategies. The least frequent ones were monitoring and recording symptoms and discussing with providers of medical care. The duration of the interventions ranged from three sessions to six months. Finally, individual and supervised modalities were the most frequent. After pooling the data, a meta-analysis was carried out according to four variables (i.e., pain, disability, kinesiophobia and catastrophization) and showed significant results (p < 0.05) in favor of self-care interventions. This systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that self-education interventions improve pain, psychological pain-related variables and disability in patients with chronic neck pain. The most frequently used components were addressing physical and psychological symptoms and engaging in self-care strategies. Future trials should focus on including other components, such as discussing symptoms with providers of medical care or self-monitoring symptoms. Additional areas of focus include more homogeneous doses and comparator treatments, as well as studies with better evidence to reach more solid conclusions. 2024-04-23T08:01:29Z 2024-04-23T08:01:29Z 2023-12-13 journal article Valenza-Peña, G.; Martín-Núñez, J.; Heredia-Ciuró, A.; Navas-Otero, A.; López-López, L.; Valenza, M.C.; Cabrera-Martos, I. Effectiveness of Self-Care Education for Chronic Neck Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Healthcare 2023, 11, 3161. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11243161 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/91048 10.3390/healthcare11243161 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access Atribución 4.0 Internacional MDPI