Comparing the effects of multimedia and face-to-face pain management education on pain intensity and pain catastrophizing among patients with chronic low back pain: A randomized clinical trial

Previous studies into Low Back Pain (LBP) assessed the effects of physical interventions or face-to-face (FTF) education mostly in western cultures. The present study aimed to compare the effects of multimedia and FTF pain management education (PME) on pain intensity and pain catastrophizing among participants with chronic LBP. This double-blind randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted on ninety participants with chronic LBP randomly allocated to either multimedia, FTF, or control groups. Participants in the multimedia group received PME through watching seven educational CDs at home and their counterparts in the FTF group received the same educations in seven weekly FTF educational sessions. Pain intensity (using a numerical rating scale) and pain catastrophizing (using the Pain Catastrophizing Scale) were assessed before, immediately after, and one month after the study intervention. The effects of the interventions were assessed using the repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Effect size and minimal detectable change (MDC) were reported for both variables. The regression model used in the present study was Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE). The findings of MANOVA showed the significant effects of time on pain intensity and pain catastrophizing (P