Pain Catastrophising and Rehabilitation Outcome: Screening Instruments and What to Do With a High Score
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22548759Keywords:
Pain catastrophising, Pain Catastrophizing Scale, Rehabilitation outcome, Fear-avoidance, Cognitive-behavioural therapy, ScreeningAbstract
Pain catastrophising, a cognitive-affective response characterised by rumination, magnification, and helplessness in relation to pain, is one of the most consistently replicated psychological predictors of poor outcome across orthopaedic and sports medicine rehabilitation settings, from ACL reconstruction to chronic low back pain to total knee arthroplasty. The Pain Catastrophizing Scale is a validated, brief, and widely available screening instrument, yet its use in routine rehabilitation practice remains inconsistent, and the evidence base on what to do once a clinically elevated score is identified is less mature than the evidence establishing the association itself. This review synthesises the predictive-validity, screening-instrument, and intervention literature on pain catastrophising to give
clinicians a structured account of why screening matters and what has been reported to work once a high score is found.
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