Table 2. Study characteristics.

Characteristic		No. of Studies	Characteristic		No. of Studies
Country	United States of America	8	Sample Size	<30	1
	Australia	4		30–100	13
	Germany	3		100–300	11
	Denmark	2		>300	2
	Norway	2
	Spain	2
	Other#	6
Chronic Pain Site*	Multiple sites	17	Chronic Pain Minimum Duration	3 months	14
	Back	7		6 months	7
	Neck	2		Specified as “chronic pain”	6
	Head	1
Types of Health Professionals§	Physiotherapist	17	Number of Types of Health Professionals	2	3
	Psychologist	17		3	8
	Nurse	9		4	1
	Physician/General Practitioner	6		5	2
	Pain Specialist	6		7	2
	Research Health Assistant	4		Other^	11
	Technique Instructor	2
	Pharmacists	2
	Othero	5
	Not specified	10
Design	One intervention and one control group	22	Delivery Mode of Intervention	Individualised only	11
	Two interventions and one control group	4		Group only	9
	One intervention and two control groups	1		Individualised and Group	7
				Face-to-face only	18
				Face-to-face and telephone	5
				Telephone only	1
				Unsure~	3
Elements of Interventions	Cognitive Behavioural Strategies¤	21	Number of Outcome MeasuresΔ Utilised in Included Studies	≤ 3	4
	Physical Activity¤	11		4–6	12
	Medication Monitoring/Optimisation	7		7–9	6
	Back Schoolγ	2		≥ 10	5
	Manual Therapy	1
	Acupuncture and massage	2
	Supply of take-home materials¤ and/or homework	23
Follow-Up Period	< 3 months	5
	3–12 months	18
	18 months	1
	None	3

^# One study from each of the following countries: Brazil, Iran, Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland and United Kingdom

*Various terminology as used to specify pain type across all studies (e.g. “chronic widespread” and “chronic non-malignant” to describe widespread pain)

^οOne study with each of the following professionals: Acupuncturist, Massage Therapist, Nutritionist, Social Worker and Surgeon

^§Numbers do not add up to 27 as studies had more than one type of health professional

^{^}Of the 27 studies included, 11 did not specify which healthcare professionals were involved. One mentioned an “activities director”, one mentioned “statistician”, one mentioned “therapist” with no definition of the term, one mentioned “Occupational Therapy and Other Medical Staff”, one mentioned “Primary Care Provider and Behavioural Health Specialist” with no clarification of the term and six were incomplete in their mention of all types of healthcare professionals constituting the team

^~ Delivery mode, as mode of communication, was not specified

^¤ Examples of Cognitive Behavioural strategies are: mindfulness and relaxation; examples of physical activity are: aerobic exercises, aquatic exercises and yoga; examples of take-home materials are: books and smartphones

^γ Back School consists of an educational program merged with skills acquisition (incl. physical activity)

^Δ A wide range of outcome measures (n~111) were used. Eleven outcome measures crossed over across studies. These included: Rolland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RDQ), Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Health Survey Short Form-36 (SF-36), each crossing over in four studies; Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK), Hospital and Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS), Numerical Rating Scale for pain (NRS) and Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ), each crossing over in three studies; and Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ), Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), Neck Disability Index (NDI) and Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ) each crossing over in two studies.