Efficacy of pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy on pain intensity and disability of older people with chronic nonspecific low back pain: a protocol for a network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this network meta-analysis (NMA) is to investigate the efficacy of pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy on pain intensity and disability of older people with chronic nonspecific low back pain, providing comprehensive evidence for an informed decision-making. METHODS: We will perform a systematic search to identify randomized controlled trials of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for older people with chronic nonspecific low back pain. MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Embase, AMED, PsycINFO, and PEDro will be searched without language or date restrictions. Our primary outcomes are pain intensity and disability. Risk of bias will be assessed for all studies using the revised Cochrane risk-of-bias (RoB) tool 2.0. For each pairwise comparison between the different interventions, estimated mean differences and their 95% confidence intervals will be presented. Standard pairwise meta-analyses will be performed using random effects models in STATA version 16. The competing interventions will be ranked using the surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) for the outcomes of interest at short and long terms. The confidence in the results from NMA will be assessed using the Confidence in Network Meta‐Analysis (CINeMA) framework. DISCUSSION: This NMA compares efficacy of interventions for nonspecific chronic low back pain in older people. It will provide reliable evidence for patients, clinicians, stakeholders, and researchers in this field where competing therapies, many of extraordinarily little value, are commonly used in clinical practice. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42022312565 SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13643-023-02369-0.