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. 2024 Jul 1;7(7):e2422259.
doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.22259.

Use of Massage Therapy for Pain, 2018-2023: A Systematic Review

Selene Mak  1 , Jennifer Allen  1 , Meron Begashaw  1 , Isomi Miake-Lye  1   2 , Jessica Beroes-Severin  1 , Gerardo De Vries  1 , Emily Lawson  3 , Paul G Shekelle  1
Affiliations

Use of Massage Therapy for Pain, 2018-2023: A Systematic Review

Selene Mak et al. JAMA Netw Open. .

Abstract

Importance: Massage therapy is a popular treatment that has been advocated for dozens of painful adult health conditions and has a large evidence base.

Objective: To map systematic reviews, conclusions, and certainty or quality of evidence for outcomes of massage therapy for painful adult health conditions.

Evidence review: In this systematic review, a computerized search was conducted of PubMed, the Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, the Cumulated Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Web of Science from 2018 to 2023. Included studies were systematic reviews of massage therapy for pain in adult health conditions that formally rated the certainty, quality, or strength of evidence for conclusions. Studies of sports massage therapy, osteopathy, dry cupping or dry needling, and internal massage therapy (eg, for pelvic floor pain) were ineligible, as were self-administered massage therapy techniques, such as foam rolling. Reviews were categorized as those with at least 1 conclusion rated as high-certainty evidence, at least 1 conclusion rated as moderate-certainty evidence, and all conclusions rated as low- or very low-certainty evidence; a full list of conclusions and certainty of evidence was collected.

Findings: A total of 129 systematic reviews of massage therapy for painful adult health conditions were found; of these, 41 reviews used a formal method to rate certainty or quality of evidence of their conclusions and 17 reviews were mapped, covering 13 health conditions. Across these reviews, no conclusions were rated as high certainty of evidence. There were 7 conclusions that were rated as moderate-certainty evidence; all remaining conclusions were rated as low- or very low-certainty evidence. All conclusions rated as moderate certainty were that massage therapy had a beneficial associations with pain.

Conclusions and relevance: This study found that despite a large number of randomized clinical trials, systematic reviews of massage therapy for painful adult health conditions rated a minority of conclusions as moderate-certainty evidence and that conclusions with moderate- or high-certainty evidence that massage therapy was superior to other active therapies were rare.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Literature Flowchart
LMIC indicates low- and- middle-income country; SR, systematic review.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Evidence Map
aThis review included distinct conclusions about separate conditions and comparators, and so it appears in this map more than once.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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