BACKGROUND: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are key elements of assessing the efficacy of perioperative pain management. Here, we aimed to capture the association of 10 individually reported aspects of patient's specific impression of change since surgery (PSIC) related to four outcome domains of a previously defined core outcome set, relative to the patient's global impression of change (PGIC). We further evaluated the influence of type of surgery, sex, preoperative baseline characteristics, and satisfaction with pain management on PGIC. METHODS: This exploratory analysis used the PROMPT NIT-1 study data (2661 patients, 18 sites, four surgery types: total knee arthroplasty, sternotomy, breast cancer surgery, or endometriosis surgery). Male and female adults were included. All PROMs were assessed on postoperative day 3. We used ordinal regression models with PGIC as a dependent variable and PSICs as independent variables. RESULTS: The overall model achieved a pseudo-R CONCLUSIONS: Although all four domains contributed to PGIC after surgery, pain intensity was the most important. These findings highlight the importance of both managing postoperative pain and optimising patient experience by addressing self-efficacy, adverse events, and pain-related interference of physical functioning. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT03834922.
Roper et al. (Sun,) studied this question.