Cross-cultural adaptation to the Dutch language of the PainDETECT-Questionnaire.

BACKGROUND: The PainDETECT-Questionnaire (PDQ) helps to identify neuropathic components in patients suffering from pain. It can be used by clinicians in daily practice and in clinical trials. AIM: The aim of this study is to perform a translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the PDQ for use in the Netherlands and Belgium. METHODS: The first phase was to translate and cross-culturally adapt the PDQ to Dutch. The second phase was to assess the face validity in the Netherlands and Belgium using qualitative and quantitative data collection. RESULTS: The length, the readability, and the clarity of the questionnaire were good for all patients. The questionnaire was judged to have a good layout and to be clearly organized. CONCLUSION: The PDQ Dutch language Version is a well translated and cross-culturally adapted questionnaire, which might be useful for screening for neuropathic components of pain in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Patients with chronic pain after abdominal surgery show less preoperative endogenous pain inhibition and more postoperative hyperalgesia: a pilot study.

Chronic pain is common and undesirable after surgery. Progression from acute to chronic pain involves altered pain processing. The authors studied relationships between presence of chronic pain versus preoperative descending pain control (diffuse noxious inhibitory controls; DNICs) and postoperative persistence and spread of skin and deep tissue hyperalgesia (change in electric/pressure pain tolerance thresholds; ePTT/pPTT) up to 6 months postoperatively. In 20 patients undergoing elective major abdominal surgery under standardized anesthesia, we determined ePTT/pPTT (close to [abdomen] and distant from [leg] incision), eDNIC/pDNIC (change in ePTT/pPTT with cold pressor pain task; only preoperatively), and a 100 mm long pain visual analogue scale (VAS) (0 mm = no pain, 100 mm = worst pain imaginable), both at rest and on movement preoperatively, and 1 day and 1, 3, and 6 months postoperatively. Patients reporting chronic pain 6 months postoperatively had more abdominal and leg skin hyperalgesia over the postoperative period. More inhibitory preoperative eDNIC was associated with less late postoperative pain, without affecting skin hyperalgesia. More inhibitory pDNIC was linked to less postoperative leg deep tissue hyperalgesia, without affecting pain VAS. This pilot study for the first time links chronic pain after surgery, poorer preoperative inhibitory pain modulation (DNIC), and greater postoperative degree, persistence, and spread of hyperalgesia. If confirmed, these results support the potential clinical utility of perioperative pain processing testing.