Prediction of severe and persistent postoperative pain by psychophysical testing

Psychophysical testing has the potential to identify patients at risk for severe postsurgical pain and for developing persistent postsurgical pain. Identification of that risk should allow for better preemptive actions. However, the clinimetric characteristics of these tests are barely defined. Consequently, their predictive value remains limited and needs to be refined in order to be exploitable at the bedside with standardized protocols and normative data for surgical patients