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Washington, DC — Understanding patient concerns in those undergoing hip or knee arthroplasty is the first step in prioritizing and providing appropriate information used to make joint replacement decisions, according to research presented at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting.
W. Benjamin Nowell, PhD, of the Global Healthy Living Foundation and CreakyJoints in Upper Nyack, NY, and colleagues recruited 49 patients from the Arthritis Power Patient Powered Research Network and the CreakyJoints patient community to participate in a number of structured 1-hour webinar discussions between January and April 2016. These webinars aimed to understand patients’ experiences surrounding joint replacement.
“Patient engaged research can improve the safety and satisfaction outcomes of hip and knee arthroplasty,” the researchers wrote. “Patients are able to identify the decisions that are most important to them when undergoing hip and knee arthroplasty and the factors they view as important in making those decisions.”
The most important decisions were patients’ decisions on whether or not to have surgery, the selection of their surgery date, the surgeon, the facility, the implant device, and ancillary health care professionals and services.
Many factors influenced these decisions, including current life situation and health status, knowledge of surgery alternatives, trust of and communication with their surgeon, and trust and communication with their health care provider.
“Patient-centered research should maximally address questions of importance to patients and this study is a first step in identifying and prioritizing topics that matter most to patients and the information that patients currently use to make joint replacement decisions,” Dr Nowell and colleagues concluded.
Reference
Nowell WB, Venkatachalam S, Harden E, Concannon T. Patient decisions related to hip and knee arthroplasty and the factors influencing them. Presented at: 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting; November 11-16, 2016; Washington, D.C. Abstract no. 110.
