Developing a surgeon-patient communication checklist for total knee arthroplasty

Area of Science:

• Orthopedic surgery
• Patient communication
• Surgical outcomes

Background:

• Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) has high success rates, but 20% of patients report dissatisfaction.
• Surgeon-patient communication is key to managing postoperative expectations and patient satisfaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• Develop a communication checklist for surgeons.
• Enhance surgeon-patient communication to manage expectations.
• Increase patient satisfaction with TKA outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Content analysis of patient interviews (6 weeks to 6 months post-TKA).
• Identified eight key issues where patients desired more information.
• Chi-square tests analyzed topic distribution across patient groups.

Main Results:

• Specific topics were mentioned significantly more often by patients.
• Age and employment status influenced topic discussion, but gender did not.
• Checklist categories: pain management, physiotherapy, medication, general outcomes.

Conclusions:

• Patient experiences from TKA recovery informed the checklist development.
• The checklist offers a new method to improve TKA patient satisfaction via enhanced communication.
• Findings are applicable to other interventions focused on managing patient expectations.