Satisfying patients needs for surgical information

✍ Scribed by Mr. M. H. Edwards

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 368 KB
• Volume: 77
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0007-1323
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.1800770431

✦ Synopsis

Patients facing operation need good information. This is implicit in informed consent but it is often lacking. A solution is a comprehensive set

of leaflets covering 65 diflerent general surgical operations. The leaflets describe the illness, operation, exact management regimen, some complications and outlook, in a deliberately simple style. Master copies are stored on a wordprocessor to allow unlimited expansion and updating. A retrospective survey of 200 patients showed that those receiving leajlets were significantly more satisfied with information (72 per cent overall) than those not receiving leaflets (42 per cent overall) (P < 0.01 ). This was especially apparent for information about postoperative progress, both in hospital (92 per cent versus 52 per cent) and after discharge from hospital (88 per cent versus 39 per cent). The system is efective, cheap and popular with patients and medical and nursing stafl. The wordprocessor allows extensive modifications of the information to suit other surgeons' requirements.