ArticleBritish journal of pain2024
The efficacy, acceptability and safety of acceptance and commitment therapy for fibromyalgia - a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Article in British journal of pain, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 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
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effects of acceptance and commitment therapy on negative emotions, automatic thoughts and psychological flexibility for depression and its acceptability: a meta-analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- The effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on work-related rumination and job fatigue of medical emergency and accident management center staff: an experimental study.BMC psychiatry · 2024Trial
- Preliminary Investigation of Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction and Their Associations With Psychological Flexibility and Daily Functioning in People With Fibromyalgia.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Article
- Understanding fibromyalgia beyond pain: emotional imbalance and the case for compassionate care.RMD open · 2026Review
- The Role of Subjective Well-Being in the Relationship Between Illness Invalidation, Acceptance, and Functioning in Fibromyalgia.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Fibromyalgia: Neuropsychological and Clinical Correlates in Suicidal Behavior Based on Ideation-to-Action Models-A Critical Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Therapeutic Patient Education in Adults with Chronic Lower Limb Musculoskeletal Pain: A Scoping Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- The Gür fibromyalgia model: a clinically operational framework for phenotype-informed, sequence-sensitive multimodal care.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- How to Undertake Personalized Assessments and Administer Cures for Pain.Journal of personalized medicine · 2025Article
- Balance Abilities and Kinesiophobia in Women with Fibromyalgia Syndrome: A Cross-Sectional Comparative Study.Archives of rheumatology · 2025Article
- Residual pain and fatigue are affected by disease perception in rheumatoid arthritis in sustained clinical and ultrasound remission.Clinical rheumatology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain disorder characterised by widespread pain, fatigue and cognitive symptoms. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) aims to improve psychological flexibility and has been found to be beneficial in treating chronic pain; however, there are few studies evaluating its efficacy in treating FM. Aim: This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluated the efficacy of acceptance and commitment therapy in patients with fibromyalgia. Methods: PubMed, Embase and PsychInfo databases were searched. Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) were eligible for inclusion if participants had FM, and the intervention was based on the ACT framework/model, and not combined with any other active therapy; any non-ACT control was accepted. A meta-analysis was performed, with the primary outcomes pain acceptance (chronic pain acceptance questionnaire, CPAQ), health-related quality of life (fibromyalgia impact questionnaire, FIQ), attrition rate and frequency of adverse events, and the secondary outcomes pain intensity, disability, depression, anxiety, and fatigue. Results: Six RCTs, with a total of 384, mostly-female, participants were included, with ACT being delivered online, in a group setting, or one-to-one. ACT was superior to controls in improving FIQ score at post-intervention (SMD -1.05, 95% CI -2.02, -0.09) and follow-up (SMD -1.43, 95% CI -2.17, -0.69) and CPAQ post-intervention (SMD 1.05, 95% CI 0.61, 1.49) and at follow-up (SMD 0.95, 95% CI 0.40, 1.49). Attrition was below 20% in 4/6 studies and no adverse events were reported as attributable to ACT. All secondary outcomes showed large-to-moderate pooled effect estimates post-intervention, indicating improvement in anxiety, depression, pain and disability. Fatigue also improved, with a large negative effect. Conclusions: The results suggest ACT improved outcomes in patients with FM: there was an overall improvement in all outcomes post-intervention, with most maintained at follow-up. This review was, however, limited by the small body of evidence and differing methodologies of included studies.
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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 Socratic graph.