Postoperative Instruction Retention, Written Versus Audiovisual Adjuncts: A Prospective Randomized Study.

Area of Science:

• Orthopedic Surgery
• Patient Education
• Surgical Outcomes

Background:

• Postoperative protocol adherence is crucial for surgical outcomes.
• Traditional written instructions may have limitations in patient retention.
• Effective patient education is key to successful recovery.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess patient retention of postoperative instructions using traditional written formats.
• To compare retention rates between written instructions and audiovisual adjuncts.
• To determine if audiovisual adjuncts improve patient recall of postoperative care.

Main Methods:

• A prospective randomized controlled trial involving 60 adult patients undergoing hand/wrist soft tissue procedures.
• Patients received postoperative instructions via written format or audiovisual adjunct.
• A blinded phone questionnaire assessed instruction retention 2 days post-surgery.

Main Results:

• Fifty patients were analyzed; audiovisual group retention (85%) was higher than written group (80%).
• Subgroup analysis showed significantly higher recall in the audiovisual group for patients under local anesthesia (87.5% vs 80.5%).
• Demographic factors did not significantly impact retention scores.

Conclusions:

• Audiovisual supplementation enhances postoperative instruction retention for soft tissue hand procedures.
• The benefit is particularly pronounced in patients undergoing wide-awake local anesthesia procedures.
• Improved patient understanding and adherence can positively impact surgical outcomes.