Abstract
The Trent Arthroplasty Audit Group (TAAG) is an arthroplasty register set up over ten years ago to record data on all hip and knee arthroplasties performed in the Trent region. This currently serves a population of 5.16 million with an average of 10,000 arthroplasties recorded each year. Patients are sent a postal questionnaire at one year post surgery to record satisfaction with surgery amongst some of its parameters.
We analysed the questionnaires returned on patients having undergone primary knee arthroplasties during the years 97/98. Those recording a poor satisfaction score were then analysed to see if any trends emerged and thus achieve our aim of improving overall satisfaction scores within Trent.
In 1997/98, 3219 primary knee replacements were perfomed in Trent, of which 241(12%) recorded a poor satisfaction rating. Analysing this group, 30% of patients had no clinically identifiable cause for their dissatisfaction. No correlation between type of implant used could be suggested. In 28% of patients the surgeons were unaware of their patients’ dissatisfaction in clinic. Bilateral arthroplasties had been performed in 25% of the dissatisfied group. Re-evaluating this group 4 years post-op, improved their dissatisfaction to 7%.
Our study indicates that a high proportion of patients (12%), undergoing knee replacement surgery record a poor satisfaction score at one year post-op. The respective consultants were unaware of any problem in 30% of cases, despite follow up. This rating improved to 7% without intervention in many cases. We suggest that this may be due to high expectations and appropriate pre-operative counselling needs to be undertaken before such surgery.
The abstracts were prepared by Mr Richard Buxton. Correspondence should be addressed to him at Bankton Cottage, 21 Bankton Park, Kingskettle, Cupar, Fife KY15 7PY, United Kingdom
