Patient Compliance With Physical Therapy Following Orthopedic Surgery and Its Outcomes

Patient compliance is a major concern for the efficacy of physiotherapy amongst those that undergo orthopedic surgery. The substantial number of people who are non-compliant makes this an imperative issue to address. Our objectives were to quantify the percentage of patient compliance for physiotherapy after their surgery, to measure the association between compliance and the status of health, mobility, and pain, and to identify the causes of non-compliance.

A cross-sectional study was conducted on post-orthopedic surgery patients attending physical therapy sessions at King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, over a one-year period. The sample size of 359 was calculated and selected using simple random sampling. Our questionnaire was developed by adopting questions from two previously validated studies.

The majority of the participants (n=194; 54%) were male. One hundred and ninety-three (53.8%) participants had a diploma or higher. The age group 18-35 was found to be significantly associated with skipping physiotherapy sessions when they started to feel well (P= 0.016) and skipping due to other responsibilities (P=0.002). Single people skip physiotherapy when they start to feel well (P=0.023), due to other responsibilities (P=0.028), and due to poor timing (P=0.049). Self-reported compliance to physical therapy after surgery was 231 (64.3%). Patient status showed overall improvement.

There is a significant percentage of non-compliance and the patient's age, gender, marital status, and level of education play a role in the causes of non-compliance. In addition, the patient's status (health, pain, and mobility) is better in those who are compliant than in those who are not.