Upskilling Pain Relief After Surgery: Perioperative Behavioral Intervention Efficacy and Practical Considerations

This webinar - held on 5 February 2025 - was produced by IASP's Acute Pain Special Interest Group.

The Acute Pain SIG advances and promotes the understanding of mechanisms, assessment, prevention, and management of acute pain through the following:

• Collaboration between basic and clinical research.
• Study of the underlying mechanisms of acute pain, including the transition from acute to chronic pain, and the implications of acute pain therapy for clinical outcome and quality of life.
• Exchange of guideline developments, methodology, and implementation strategies.
• Exchange of information and experience about the assessment and treatment of acute pain, both within IASP and in exchanges with other national and international NGOs such as the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists.
• Identification and implementation of programs to minimize the development of acute pain and related suffering.
• Furthering the educational objectives of the SIG via international meetings, an annual symposium, workshops at IASP World Congresses, Congress satellite meetings, a newsletter, and the IASP website.

This webinar centered around identified perioperative behavioral interventions with randomized controlled evidence supporting efficacy for extending analgesia after surgery, based on the following work:

Darnall BD, Abshire L, Courtney RE, Davin S. “Upskilling Pain Relief After Surgery: A scoping review of perioperative behavioral intervention efficacy and practical considerations.” Reg Anes Pain Med. 2025;50:93-101.

In this article, authors reported that out of 20 included randomized controlled trials, four reported evidence for four different types of brief behavioral interventions that provided longer-term analgesia after surgery (e.g., 1-6 months). This webinar described the evidence for all four interventions, and included presentations from the principal investigators of three of these interventions. Only one of the four interventions is being utilized widely in the clinic as standard care. Practical considerations for broad implementation were discussed by an experienced team, as well as gaps in scientific research and understandings and in-progress research.

Participants included:

• Madelon Peters, PhD, Maastricht University, Netherlands, Need for accessible and effective interventions in post-surgical pain relief and recovery
• Katie Hadlandsmyth, PhD, University of Iowa, USA, Preventing persistent postsurgical pain: The Perioperative Pain Self-management (PePS) intervention
• Samantha Meints, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in arthroplasty patients
• Beth Darnall, PhD, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USASara Davin, PsyD, MPH, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, USA, Embedding Empowered Relief into spinal surgery at Cleveland Clinic
• Regina "Rianne" L.M. van Boekel, RN, PhD, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands (moderator)