Patient-reported complications after elective joint replacement surgery: are they correct?

Area of Science:

• Orthopedic Surgery
• Patient Outcomes Research
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Elective joint replacement surgery is common, with patient-reported outcomes crucial for monitoring post-operative care.
• Accurate identification of complications is essential for timely intervention and improved patient management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the accuracy of patient-reported complications following elective hip and knee replacement surgery.
• To identify specific complications with high and low reporting accuracy by patients.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional study comparing patient-reported complications from questionnaires with medical records (GP, hospital) and telephone interviews.
• Analysis of 402 post-discharge complications from 8546 elective joint replacement operations over three years.

Main Results:

• Overall, 79.4% of patient-reported complications were confirmed as accurate.
• High accuracy was noted for infection (94.5%) and re-operation (100%).
• Lower accuracy was observed for deep-vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism, myocardial infarction, stroke (75-84.2%), and modest accuracy for dislocation, fractures, and nerve palsy (36-57.1%).
• Knee surgery patients reported dislocation and DVT inaccurately more often.

Conclusions:

• Patient-reported complications after joint replacement surgery demonstrate variable accuracy but can be a valuable component of outcome monitoring.
• Further research into patient-reported outcome programs is warranted to refine data collection and improve accuracy for specific complications.