One-Month Postoperative Pain Predicts 3-Month Postoperative Dissatisfaction in Total Knee Arthroplasty Patients

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between 1-month pain scores and 3-month postoperative satisfaction and investigate whether an immediate postoperative pain score cutoff exists between satisfied and dissatisfied patients. METHODS: This was a secondary analysis of a multicenter, longitudinal, cohort study comprised total knee arthroplasty (TKA) patients (n = 1763) using a digital care management platform. Pain was assessed at 1 month postoperatively through an 11-point numeric rating scale (NRS). Satisfaction was assessed at 3 months postoperative through the Knee Society composite satisfaction score (KSS). Patients were stratified into satisfied (KSS >30) and dissatisfied (KSS 4.0. The model achieves an area under curve (AUC) of 0.73 (SD = 0.02), with a maximum f1-score of 0.65, corresponding to sensitivity = 0.87 and specificity = 0.44. CONCLUSION: One-month postoperative pain scores greater than 4.0 were associated with patient dissatisfaction at 3 months postoperatively. Assessing pain in the immediate postoperative period can provide clinicians with diagnostic data that may help detect patients at risk for a poor prognosis 3 months following TKA.