Patients may wait some time for total hip replacement with conservative management of pain and disability, but no attempts to rehabilitate them. This study randomised 40 patients accepted for and awaiting total hip replacement to a brief rehabilitative psychologically based pain management programme (PMP) or to a control group with no intervention. Patients were assessed before randomisation, 3 months after the PMP or equivalent waiting time, and again one year later after total hip replacement. Assessments included pain, impact of pain (Arthritis Impact Scale: AIMS), mobility (timed walk), sleep and analgesic consumption. The patients who had learned pain management reported lower pain intensity and pain distress and less sleep disturbance than waiting list controls, but no improvement in function or analgesic consumption. Six patients opted to delay, but this did not differ between groups. Post-hip replacement both groups improved in pain and some aspects of activity (AIMS) with greater improvement in the PMP group for physical activity and total AIMS scores, suggesting that some techniques had continued to be of use post-surgically. Rehabilitative pain management may be useful to patients pre-operatively in managing everyday pain, but not to the extent that they opt to delay surgery; it may also improve their function after hip replacement.

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