Situational but not dispositional pain catastrophizing correlates with early postoperative pain in pain-free patients before surgery

Pain catastrophizing may be assessed as a dispositional measure using a previous painful experience as a reference or as a situational measure using an actual ongoing pain as a reference. The latter has shown more robust correlations with pain-related outcomes; the relative influence of dispositional and situational pain catastrophizing remains unknown in relation to populations with no pain prior to surgery. Forty-two consecutive patients undergoing corrective surgery for funnel chest were asked to complete the Pain Catastrophizing Scale with reference to (1) a previous painful experience (dispositional pain catastrophizing); (2) experimental pain during a two-minute cold pressor test (situational-experimental pain catastrophizing); and (3) clinical pain three days after surgery (situational-clinical pain catastrophizing) to investigate whether these measures predicted immediate pain intensity and unpleasantness in the early postoperative period.

from The Journal of Pain http://ift.tt/1UxHUjl
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