WaPo leans hard on news release for story on meditation and back pain

Does the story adequately quantify the benefits of the treatment/test/product/procedure?

Satisfactory

The story tells readers what percentage of study participants who got MBSR treatment reported improvement in pain, as well as what percentage of MBSR participants “reported improvement in the activities they could do.”

It also offered the same numbers for participants who received CBT and for the control group, which received typical medical care for this condition. These details deserve a Satisfactory rating. But:

• The story would have been stronger if it had told readers how much study participants improved, rather than just how many patients improved.
• And, the story left out an important detail on the observed benefits: The study itself says “No overall differences in treatment effects were observed for…self-reported use of medications for back pain.” In other words, the treatments didn’t reduce the apparent need for medication, even though that was hinted at as a possibility in the story (see disease mongering, below).

Does the story adequately explain/quantify the harms of the intervention?

Satisfactory

The story notes: “The study did caution that 30 of the 103, or about one-third, of the participants in the meditation group reported an ‘adverse event,’ most often an increase in pain due to yoga.” It’s good to see that included. Since the story is effectively comparing MBSR to CBT and conventional treatment, it would also have been worth noting “adverse events” for those groups in the study. According to the study, 10 percent of the CBT group also experienced “adverse events,” and no adverse events were mentioned for the control group.

Defining “adverse events” would also have been good, since it’s not clear whether they mean momentary pain or a debilitating flare-up of long-term pain. According to the study, the pain–for both MBSR and CBT groups–was “mostly temporary” and no “serious” adverse events were reported. Those things are worth mentioning. (It’s also worth finding out what “mostly” and “serious” mean.)

Does the story seem to grasp the quality of the evidence?

Satisfactory

The story describes the study in detail, explicitly stating the study size and the absolute percentages in each arm that had benefit. It also acknowledged the study was randomized. We’ll count this as sufficient for Satisfactory, keeping in mind the following:

As explained in the summary above, the story doesn’t make clear MBSR and CBT were used in addition to conventional medical treatment, rather than instead of medical treatment.

The story didn’t mention that the study excluded participants with what the study authors term “a specific diagnosis (eg, spinal stenosis).” In other words, the study did not address treatments for back pain caused by issues like a herniated disc or rheumatoid arthritis. Many readers have these conditions, and should be informed that these study results may not be applicable to their situation.

Lastly, we would have welcomed a discussion of the high rates of success within the control group. Forty-four percent in that group experienced a gain in functionality, for example. That seems pretty good! What do the researchers have to say about that?

Does the story commit disease-mongering?

Satisfactory

No disease mongering here. However, we did want to point out that the story “fear mongers” in a sense, by stating back pain is “one reason why more and more people are addicted to painkillers.”

The story insinuates that these other treatment methods–especially meditation–could help with that. And maybe they could. But the study itself says “No overall differences in treatment effects were observed for…self-reported use of medications for back pain.” So why the mention of painkiller addiction?

Does the story use independent sources and identify conflicts of interest?

Satisfactory

Conflicts of interest don’t appear to be an issue here, and the story includes statements from an accompanying editorial in JAMA, which was written by experts unaffiliated with the research. This squeaks by as Satisfactory, though it should be noted that most of this material was available via news releases (see below).

Does the story compare the new approach with existing alternatives?

Satisfactory

The story is effectively all about comparing alternatives, though–again–it should have made clear that MBSR and CBT were used in conjunction with conventional medical treatment, and it left out discussion of other well-known non-medication treatment methods, such as exercise.

Does the story establish the true novelty of the approach?

Satisfactory

Given the constraints of a brief news story, the piece does a nice job of articulating the differences between MBSR and CBT. It would have been even more helpful for the story to mention previous studies on the impact of MBSR and CBT on low back pain, to help us understand how novel this new study is.