“Pain-free hysteroscopy”, a blog by Dr Richard Harrison

Summary

Dr Richard Harrison is a pain researcher employed at the University of Reading and affiliated with the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences (SPCLS) and Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and Neurodynamics (CINN). His research focuses predominately on pain, examining psychological processes underlying how pain is processed, as well as individual differences in the ability to modulate (or control) the experience of pain.

In this blog, Richard reflects on his recent research on pain experience and assessment during hysteroscopy procedures, published recently in the British Journal of Anaesthesia.

"The dangers of advertising hysteroscopy as a mildly painful procedure are many. Firstly, this stands to put women off engaging with a very useful diagnostic test for the identification of serious medical conditions, such as ovarian cancer or endometriosis. But secondly, it is highly plausible that the resulting prediction error stands to make the experience even more painful than if patients were appropriately warned."