Pain Catastrophizing Scale as a predictor of low postoperative satisfaction after hand surgery

Psychological measures are used increasingly in outcome studies. The Pain Catastrophizing Scale is a 13-item questionnaire used to measure coping skills and negative feelings of pain. In the existing literature it is suggested that the Pain Catastrophizing Scale could be associated with the outcome following surgery. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of catastrophic thinking on postoperative satisfaction after treatment for hand conditions where pain is not the predominant symptom (Dupuytren's disease, trigger finger and wrist ganglia), and further to estimate cut-points on the Pain Catastrophizing Scale.

A total of 413 patients (53% females) with a mean age of 59 years were included in this one-year prospective follow-up study. The patients were diagnosed with either Dupuytren's disease (N = 133), trigger finger (N = 365), or wrist ganglia (N = 147). Preoperative data included disability (Disability of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand questionnaire (DASH)), quality of life (EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D)), and pain catastrophizing (Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS)). One year postoperative, data on DASH score, EQ-5D, and patient satisfaction were collected. We used a classification tree to define the most important cut-points, which could classify patients as low-risk or high-risk of low postoperative satisfaction. These cut-points and the 75th percentile cut-point was then used in logistic regression models with postoperative satisfaction as outcome variable.

The median DASH score improved from 13.5 to 2.6 (p < 0.01), and the median EQ-5D score improved from 0.82 to 1.00, and 90.3% of patients were satisfied or very satisfied with the surgery.Using the 75th percentile (≤12) we did not find a predictive effect of PCS. However, when using the two cut-points from the classification tree (≤27.5 & ≤2.9) all tested models were statistically significant with odds ratios for risk of low satisfaction ranging from 2.81 to 6.44. Only the model using PCS ≤27.5 adjusted for both demographics and disability was insignificant.

This study suggests that PCS can be a valuable tool in predicting postoperative satisfaction in hand conditions where pain is not the predominant symptom, and that ≤27.5 and ≤ 2.9 are the optimal cut-point on the preoperative PCS.