Patient-perceived surgical indication influences patient expectations of surgery for degenerative spinal disease

Patients frequently have misconceptions regarding diagnosis, surgical indication, and expected outcome following spinal surgery for degenerative spinal disease. In this study, we sought to understand the relationship between patient-perceived surgical indications and patient expectations. We hypothesized that patients reporting appendicular symptoms as a primary surgical indication would report a higher rate of having expectations met by surgery compared to those patients reporting axial symptoms as a primary indication.

Questionnaires were administered to patients who had undergone surgery for degenerative spinal disease at 2 tertiary care institutions. Questions assessed perception of the primary indication for undergoing surgery (radicular versus axial), whether the primary symptom improved after surgery, and whether patient expectations were met with surgery. Outcomes of interest included patient-reported symptomatic improvement following surgery and expectations met by surgery. Various factors were assessed for their relationship to these outcomes of interest.

There were 151 unique survey respondents. Respondents were nearly split between having a patient-perceived indication for surgery as appendicular symptoms (55.6%) and axial symptoms (44.4%). Patient-perceived surgical indication being appendicular symptoms was the only factor predictive of patient-reported symptomatic improvement in our logistic regression model (OR 2.614; 95% CI 1.218-5.611). Patient-perceived surgical indication being appendicular symptoms (OR 3.300; 95% CI 1.575-6.944) and patient-reported symptomatic improvement (OR 33.297; 95% CI 12.186-90.979) were predictive of patients reporting their expectations met with surgery in both univariate and multivariate logistic regression modeling.

We found that patient-reported appendicular symptoms as the primary indication for surgery were associated with a higher rate of both subjective improvement following surgery and having expectations met by surgery. Studies such as ours point to the fact that while performing technically superlative operations is paramount, it may be equally important to address other factors that help determine patient perception of the surgery experience.