Background and Aims Chronic pain can contribute to disability, depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, poor quality of life and increased health care costs. Chronic pain is a complex. The growing consensus indicates that the best approach to treatment involves the combination of pharmacological and nonpharmacological interventions such as physical therapy. During physical therapy, pain neuroscience education (PNE) aims to help patients understand more regarding the experience of pain from a biological and physiological.

Methods Systematic searches were conducted on 4 databases, Pubmed, Science Direct, Scopus και Pedro. All experimental RCTS evaluating the effect of PNE as a unique or combined therapeutic approach compared to other treatments.

Results 9 RCTs met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were included in this review. Narrative summary of results is provided for each study in relation to effectiveness of PNE. Results of these studies show that PNE either as a stand-alone treatment or as part of a physiotherapy management approach of chronic pain patients improves their understanding of underlying pain neurophysiological mechanisms, pain levels, functionality, kinesiophobia and fear avoidance beliefs. The conditions ranged from chronic low back and neck pain to fibromyalgia, indicating a diverse and broad spectrum of conditions that PNE might be used as an effective treatment approach.

Conclusions Current evidence supports that the use of PNE can produce a statistically and clinically important difference in reducing pain, improving patient understanding of pain mechanisms, reducing disability and psychosocial factors and improving function and quality of life.