Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

WHY IS THIS STUDY BEING DONE? A large portion of patients who have cardiothoracic surgery continue to feel severe pain after their operation, and about 1 in 10 still experience chronic and disabling pain one year or more after surgery. Despite these alarming facts, there is very little knowledge on what predicts these poor surgical outcomes. There is an urgent need to discover the risk factors for chronic pain after surgery so that health professionals can take steps to prevent this needless pain and suffering in future patients. HOW IS THE STUDY BEING DONE? This research study monitors patients who undergo cardiothoracic surgery from before their operation to a year afterwards to find out what puts some patients at high risk for chronic pain. Patients will provide a medical history, answer questionnaires on mental health and sleep quality, describe their pain experiences, wear an activity monitor, and complete some physical testing before their surgery, when they leave the hospital, and at 3, 6, and 12 months after surgery. This information will be used to identify why some people develop chronic pain while others do not. HOW WILL THE RESULTS IMPACT PATIENTS? The first step to reducing the risk of chronic pain after surgery is to identify what puts people at risk. This knowledge will provide new opportunities to manage risk factors in high-risk patients to ultimately reduce the burden of chronic, disabling pain following surgery.