Sleep-focused treatments had mixed pain results in adults with fibromyalgia
Sodium oxybate improved pain against placebo after treatment, while insomnia-focused cognitive behavioral therapy did not clearly improve pain against usual care. Long-term effects remain unresolved.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
For adults with fibromyalgia, the review found different pain results for different sleep-focused treatments. Sodium oxybate improved self-reported pain compared with placebo after treatment. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia did not establish a pain improvement against usual care or the reported behavioral comparators. These findings do not show that improving sleep through any approach will necessarily reduce fibromyalgia pain.
The abstract does not establish long-term pain effects. Data were insufficient to pool some treatments, including melatonin and zopiclone. It also omits the pain scale needed to interpret the reported raw score differences.
What researchers found
Self-reported fibromyalgia pain
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia versus usual care: the difference after treatment was not statistically significant. This does not establish equivalent pain outcomes.
The endpoint was pain
Although the interventions targeted sleep, the review's question concerned pain outcomes. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is a psychological treatment focused on sleep difficulties. Its uncertain pain result should not be interpreted as a finding about whether sleep itself improved.
Other comparisons stayed uncertain
Insomnia-focused therapy also showed no statistically clear pain difference against sleep hygiene training. Combining therapy for insomnia and pain did not clearly outperform therapy for pain alone. These comparisons cannot establish that the approaches are interchangeable or equally effective.
The original publication
Analgesic benefits of pharmacological and nonpharmacological sleep interventions for adults with fibromyalgia: a systematic review and meta-analyses.
Abolhosseini S, Malatesta A, Asmundson AJN et al.
Pain · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 40705693
- Record checked
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