Introduction and objective:
In people who have undergone amputation, it is common to have phantom pain, which drastically reduces the quality of life. Electrostimulation is a valuable non-invasive clinical technique in which electrical stimuli are applied to the patient to promote symptomatic relief of pain of various origins. The aim of this study was to review the literature on the use of electrostimulation for phantom limb pain relief in amputees.

Review methods:
1,004 articles were found in databases. After exclusion of duplicate articles, in an automatic and manual way, Phase 1 was carried out – reading of titles and abstracts of 592 articles according to the eligibility criteria by 2 blinded reviewers using the Rayyan QCRI programme; conflicts were resolved in consensus between the 2 reviewers. Thus, 31 articles were selected for Phase 2 – reading in full, leaving 3 articles in this review. The Cochrane Robins 1 instrument was used to assess the quality of bias of the selected studies.

Brief description of the state of knowledge:
Three studies were included, with a total number of participants of 56 individuals. All 3 studies showed a reduction in phantom limb pain; however, the overall risk of bias ranged from serious to moderate, which can create doubts with respect to the results observed by the primary researchers.

Summary:
Electrostimulation has been shown to be effective in reducing the effects of phantom limb pain, although the number of articles found was small and the risk of bias significant.