Patient Mental Health and Well-being: Its Impact on Orthopaedic Trauma Outcomes

A patient's mental health can have a significant impact on their orthopaedic trauma outcome. It is important for orthopaedic surgeons to identify patients at risk for a poor outcome based on their mental health, to include the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety, among others. Although some behaviors such as catastrophizing have been associated with worse outcomes, others, such as possessing greater self-efficacy have been associated with improved outcomes. Because of the high prevalence of mental health conditions that can have a detrimental effect on outcome, screening should be routinely conducted and at-risk patients referred to appropriate resources in an effort to optimize outcomes.