Robotic-Assisted Surgery Adoption: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of Digital Education Strategies and Surgical Training...

The widespread adoption of robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) faces significant barriers, including a substantial public knowledge gap and a lack of formalized training pathways for surgeons.

The primary objectives were to evaluate the public's awareness and understanding of RAS, identify the prevalent patient misconceptions and surgical training deficits through expert interviews, and, based on these findings, develop and pilot-test a multi-tiered digital education platform.

A sequential mixed-methods design was employed. The quantitative phase involved a national survey of 507 participants in India to assess RAS knowledge and demographic correlations. The qualitative phase consisted of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nine robotic surgeons to identify common patient misconceptions and training needs. The insights from both phases were triangulated to inform the design of a three-tiered digital education platform, which was subsequently pilot-tested with a small cohort of participants to evaluate its efficacy.

The survey revealed a significant discrepancy between public awareness (n = 452, 89.2%) and functional understanding (n = 88, 17.3%) of RAS. Expert interviews confirmed this gap, with surgeons (n = 8, 89% of respondents) reporting the belief in autonomous robotic operation as the most common misconception. The qualitative data also highlighted a critical deficit in surgical training, with early-career surgeons averaging only 12.4 console cases. The pilot test of the developed digital platform demonstrated a 43% overall increase in patient understanding, with comprehension of the surgeon's control mechanisms increasing by 100% (from n = 21 (41%) to n = 41 (82%)).

The findings confirm that a significant gap exists between RAS adoption and public understanding, a problem exacerbated by deficiencies in surgical training.