Relationship Between Personality Traits and Perceived Pain After Photorefractive Keratectomy: A Cross-Sectional Study...

Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) is a common procedure to correct refractive errors. However, postoperative pain is one of the most common drawbacks of PRK. Evidence shows that individual`s personality traits could impact postoperative perceived pain. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the severity of postoperative pain and personality traits after PRK.

This cross-sectional study was performed on 300 patients who attended to Mahdieh Surgical Clinic (Hamadan, Iran) and underwent PRK. Persian version of the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) was applied to assess personality traits, and postoperative pain was measured using the visual analog scale (VAS) score.

The mean age of patients was 31.8 ±5.51 years, and most (68%) were female. The most common personality trait was neuroticism, and the mean refractive errors of the right and left eyes of the patients were 1.2±2.67 and 1.3±2.75, respectively. Regarding the VAS score, patients with neuroticism traits perceived the most severe postoperative pain (VAS=6±2.2). Also, the Pearson correlation test indicated a positive correlation between perceived pain and neuroticism personality traits (r=0.059, P˂0.001). In contrast, a significant negative correlation was observed between extraversion and conscientiousness with pain perception (r= -0.737 and r= -0.307, respectively).

Our findings showed a positive and significant correlation between three personality traits and pain perception in these patients. Postoperative pain perception in patients undergoing PRK depends on the personality traits of these patients. Groups with less personality stability feel more pain than groups with stable personalities.