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What questions do patients undergoing lower extremity joint replacement surgery have?
Alex Macario1, Peter Schilling, Richard Rubio
1Department of Anesthesia, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA. amaca@stanford.edu
BMC Health Services Research
|June 26, 2003
Summary
Patients undergoing hip or knee replacement surgery prioritize questions about self-care, physical therapy, mobility, and walking. Online resources can address diverse patient information needs for joint replacement surgery.
Area of Science:
- Orthopedics
- Patient Education
- Health Informatics
Background:
- Internet-based preoperative education is valuable but requires understanding patient question variability.
- Orthopedic patients undergoing total hip arthroplasty (THA) or total knee arthroplasty (TKA) have diverse information needs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the importance of various questions for patients considering THA or TKA.
- To identify patient priorities for preoperative education content.
Main Methods:
- Literature review and pilot patient/surgeon interviews to generate questions.
- Survey of 29 THA and 19 TKA patients rating 30 questions on a 5-point Likert scale.
Main Results:
- Top questions concerned self-care ability, need for physical therapy, post-surgery mobility, and normal walking timelines.
- Significant patient disagreement on question importance (42-47%) indicates varied needs.
- Some patients highly valued questions rated low by others.
Conclusions:
- A core set of questions is relevant for most THA/TKA patients.
- Individualized information needs exist beyond the core set.
- The internet offers a flexible platform to meet diverse patient preoperative education requirements.