PEER simplified chronic pain guideline: Management of chronic low back, osteoarthritic, and neuropathic pain in primary care.

Objective: To develop a clinical practice guideline to support the management of chronic pain, including low back, osteoarthritic, and neuropathic pain in primary care.

Methods: The guideline was developed with an emphasis on best available evidence and shared decision-making principles. Ten health professionals (4 generalist family physicians, 1 pain management-focused family physician, 1 anesthesiologist, 1 physical therapist, 1 pharmacist, 1 nurse practitioner, and 1 psychologist), a patient representative, and a nonvoting pharmacist and guideline methodologist comprised the Guideline Committee.

PEER systematic review of randomized controlled trials: Management of chronic neuropathic pain in primary care.

Objective: To determine the proportion of patients with neuropathic pain who achieve a clinically meaningful improvement in their pain with the use of different pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatments.

Data Sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, and a gray literature search.

Study Selection: Randomized controlled trials that reported a responder analysis of adults with neuropathic pain-specifically diabetic neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia, or trigeminal neuralgia-treated with any of the following 8 treatments: exercise, acupuncture, serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), topical rubefacients, opioids, anticonvulsant medications, and topical lidocaine.

Top 2020 studies relevant to primary care: From the PEER team.

Objective: To summarize high-quality studies for 10 topics from 2020 that have strong relevance to primary care practice.

Selecting The Evidence: Study selection involved routine literature surveillance by a group of primary health care professionals. This included screening abstracts of high-impact journals and EvidenceAlerts, as well as searching the American College of Physicians Journal Club.

Masks for prevention of viral respiratory infections among health care workers and the public: PEER umbrella systematic review.

Objective: To determine the effect of mask use on viral respiratory infection risk.

Data Sources: MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library.

Study Selection: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) included in at least 1 published systematic review comparing the use of masks with a control group, either in community or health care settings, on the risk of viral respiratory infections.