Table 1.

Overall summary of trial characteristics

Trial design	Parallel design (41), crossover study (25)
No. of arms	Two arms (53), three arms (12), five arms (1)
Countries	USA (21), Germany (8), Denmark (7), Iran (3), China (2), Egypt (2), Finland (2), France (2), Italy (2), Korea (2), Sweden (2), Turkey (2), Belgium (1), Canada (1), Israel (1), Mozambique (1), The Netherlands (1), Norway (1), Serbia (1), Spain (1), Switzerland (1), UK (1), international multisite (1)
Surgery types	Spinal surgery (25), amputation (21), breast cancer surgery (8), inguinal hernia repair (3), neck dissection for cancer (2), knee replacement (1), sternotomy (1), abdominal surgery (1), shoulder surgery (1), various surgical procedures (3)
Interventions Pharmacological	Antidepressants as analgesics (4), antiepileptics (8), capsaicin (3), epidural steroid injections and associated interventions (11), local anaesthetic (11), neurotoxins (3), N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate receptor antagonist (7), opioids (6), calcitonin (1), naloxone as an adjuvant to morphine (1)
Physical, surgical,
psychological and
other pain
management	Acupuncture/dry needling (2), exercise (4), limb cover/liner for patients who had undergone amputation (2), spinal cord stimulation (5), further surgery (2), laser therapy (1), magnetic stimulation (1), mindfulness‐based stress reduction (1), mirror therapy for amputation (1), sensory discrimination training (1), joint manipulation (1), combined package of hot packs, ultrasound treatment and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (1)
Comparator interventions	Active treatment (31), placebo or sham (31), usual care (2), waiting list (1), no treatment (1)

Values in parentheses are number of studies.