More than Rehabilitation: The Role of Contextual Factors in Pain Perception and Recovery: What the Physiotherapy Literature Reports—A Narrative Review with a Systematic Search Strategy

Background: Pain is a multidimensional experience shaped not only by nociceptive input but also by cognitive, emotional, and social processes. In musculoskeletal (MSK) rehabilitation, outcome variability among patients with similar clinical presentations suggests that determinants beyond tissue pathology may influence pain perception and recovery. Contextual factors (CFs)—communication, therapeutic relationship, patient expectations, and environmental cues—are increasingly recognized yet remain inconsistently integrated into routine practice. Objective: To map how CFs are represented in the physiotherapy literature indexed under that terminology, and to identify where empirical evidence in MSK rehabilitation is present and where it is absent. Methods: A narrative review with a systematic search strategy, reported following SANRA, was conducted in PubMed and Scopus, searched on 31 March 2026. Records were screened against predefined eligibility criteria, including publication from 2006 onwards and English language. Two reviewers independently screened records and resolved disagreements by consensus. Methodological quality was appraised using the Cochrane RoB2 tool for randomized controlled trials and an adapted Newcastle–Ottawa Scale for observational and cross-sectional studies. Conceptual publications were not formally appraised. Each publication was classified as direct clinical evidence (Tier A), indirect mechanistic or implementation-level evidence (Tier B), or conceptual contribution (Tier C). Results: Eight publications were included: no source provided direct clinical evidence in a musculoskeletal rehabilitation population (Tier A), five provided indirect mechanistic or implementation-level evidence (Tier B), and three were conceptual contributions (Tier C). The single randomised controlled trial retrieved was conducted in asymptomatic volunteers and was at high risk of bias for the between-group comparisons of all reported outcomes. Findings are organised as contextual domains, mediating mechanisms, and outcomes. No direct clinical evidence was retrieved; claims regarding expectations, therapeutic alliance, non-verbal communication, and the clinical environment rest on indirect or conceptual sources. Conclusions: CFs may contribute to pain and rehabilitation variability through cognitive, emotional, and relational pathways, complementing rather than replacing evidence-based care. The scarcity of direct clinical evidence within the literature indexed under this terminology is itself a finding. Construct-level searches and pragmatic trials are required to clarify the contribution of individual contextual domains.