Providing Patients Realistic Expectations of Postoperative Pain (PPREOPP)

This is a prospective, randomized, single-blind study in 100 patients undergoing open colorectal surgery. If the hypothesis is confirmed, then patients who receive perioperative educational interventions to address their expectation about their postoperative pain will have improved pain-related postoperative outcomes.

Randomization and Blinding 100 eligible patients scheduled to undergo open colorectal surgery will be approached in the Center for Preoperative Assessment and Planning Clinic. At enrollment, each patient will be assigned a study number, which will match a previously prepared computer-generated list of randomization numbers to determine whether they will be in the intervention or control arm. Pre-operatively, all patients will complete an initial questionnaire. The patients in the intervention group (n=50) will, in addition to the standard pre-operative assessment, also receive pre-operative educational instruction of what to expect from a post-operative pain perspective including education material to take home.

For this study, deception will be used, with the reasoning that the patients' knowledge of the different education materials will affect their rating of the impact of the intervention on satisfaction scores.