Papers of the Week

Reducing postoperative pain immediately after surgery is crucial because severe postoperative pain reduces quality of life and increases the likelihood that patients develop chronic pain. Even though postoperative pain has been widely studied and there are national guidelines for pain management, the postoperative course is differently from one patient to the next. Different postoperative courses could be explained by factors related to the treatment context and the patients. Preoperative emotional states and treatment expectations are significant predictors of postoperative pain. However, the interaction between emotional states and preoperative treatment expectations and their effect on postoperative pain have not yet been studied. The aim of our study was to identify the interaction between emotional states, treatment expectation and early postsurgical acute pain.