Language errors in pain medicine: An umbrella review

Abstract

Errors in language are common in pain medicine, but the extent of such errors has not been systematically measured. This pre-registered umbrella review explored Embase, PubMed, Medline and CINAHL and seeks to quantify the prevalence of language errors in review articles since the last IASP definition revision.Inclusion criteria comprised any type of review with a primary focus on providing neurophysiological insights into human nociception and/or pain within a pathological context, written in English and published in a peer-reviewed journal. Exclusion criteria involved articles published before the latest IASP definition revision, after May 2023, or listed on Beall's list. Statistical analyses employed Fisher exact tests for error proportions, while contrasted negative binomial models were applied for error counts. Out of 5,470 articles screened, 48 review articles met the inclusion criteria, each revealing at least one language error category. Years of publication were not associated with the presence of language errors or language error counts.Despite limitations like a limited number of studies, outlier, terminology ambiguity, an exclusive focus on human studies, and no risk of bias evaluation, this umbrella review shows a robust methodology and transparency with online available material. Considering our findings, urgent action is needed to regulate the use of misnomers in pain medicine and improve pain related terminology.Perspective: This umbrella review explored the main biomedical databases to see how many review articles contained language errors. Our findings underscore the imperative for prompt action in regulating pain medicine terminology.Pre-registration: This umbrella review was pre-registered on OSF registries (https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/kau8m).Online material: https://osf.io/kdweg/Keywords: Umbrella review - Language errors - Pain - Nociception – Terminology