Surgeons Underestimate Their Patients’ Desire for Preoperative Information

Background Provision of adequate patient information may contribute to a “satisfying” surgical treatment. The patient’s views on successful transfer of information concerning operative characteristics may not be in concert with the surgeon’s. The aim of the present study was to determine opinions of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:World journal of surgery 2008-06, Vol.32 (6), p.964-n/a
Main Authors: Keulers, B. J., Scheltinga, M. R. M., Houterman, S., Van Der Wilt, G. J., Spauwen, P. H. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abdominal Surgery
Adult
Aged
Attitude of Health Personnel
Attitude to Health
Biological and medical sciences
Cardiac Surgery
Female
General aspects
General Surgery
Health participants
Humans
Inguinal Hernia Repair
Interactive Computer Program
Male
Medical sciences
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Middle Aged
Patient Education
Patient Education as Topic
Patient Satisfaction
Physician-Patient Relations
Preoperative Care
Preoperative Information
Preoperative Period
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Surgery
Surveys and Questionnaires
Thoracic Surgery
Vascular Surgery
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background Provision of adequate patient information may contribute to a “satisfying” surgical treatment. The patient’s views on successful transfer of information concerning operative characteristics may not be in concert with the surgeon’s. The aim of the present study was to determine opinions of both surgeons and patients about issues of surgical information. Methods A group of surgeons ( n  = 24) and surgical patients ( n  = 125) responded to a questionnaire that included 80 topics involving domains of information on disease, physical examination, preoperative period, anesthesia, operation, postoperative period, self care, and general hospital issues. Both groups were asked for their opinion on what they considered important and useful preoperative information for patients. Questions were scored with a visual analog scale. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated with Cronbach’s alpha. Differences in opinions between surgeons and patients were analyzed with Student’s t -test. Results The Cronbach’s alpha of the questionnaire was high (0.91), indicating its high reliability. Patients scored significantly higher ( p  
ISSN:0364-2313
1432-2323
DOI:10.1007/s00268-008-9581-1