gms | German Medical Science

Objective: Redisual pain causes interim function of upper limb and patient unsatisfaction after hand injury. Not only pain, catastrophizing has also an adverse effect on influence physical impairment. Compared to physical impairment, catastrophizing has a greater influence on daily living than pain. The purpose of this study to determine the relationship between pain, catastrophizing, and upper limb function in hand therapy.

Materials and Methods: Total of 21 patients, 12 female and 9 male, age 24-68 were participated in this study between September 2015 and July 2018. All patients were treated with hand therapy in our hospital for 1month - 24 months. Pain was evaluated using numerical rating scale (NRS), which was 0 for no pain and 10 for the worse pain. Catastrophizing was evaluated using Pain catastrophizing scale (PCS), which was 0 for no catastrophizing and 52 for the worse catastrophizing. Upper limb function was scored using Disabilities of the arm, shoulder and hand (DASH) - JSSH version. All evaluations were examined at the end of hand therapy. The relationship between NRS and DASH, PCS and DASH was retrospectively analyzed with Pearson correlation coefficients to understand the relationship between continuous variables.

Results: The NRS and PCS were significantly correlated with DASH scores (Pearson correlation coefficients, 0.45, 0.75, respectively; p < 0.05). Compared to NRS, PCS had greater correlation with DASH scores.

Conclusions: Increasing level of pain and pain catastrophizing scale independently associated with increased DASH scores. We concluded it is important to assess not only pain but also catastrophizing during hand therapy.