Assessing the quality of information delivered to patients in the pre-operative period

Published Date: 01st January 2020

Publication Authors: Glennon K

Understanding patient experiences during their anaesthetic journey is essential to assessing quality of care being delivered. At Whiston hospital, as part of maintaining our Anaesthesia Clinical Services Accreditation standards [1], we wanted to evaluate our performance in this domain, particularly in relation to patient understanding and satisfaction following information given to them in the form of our anaesthetic patient information leaflets (PILs), as well as pre‐operative consultations with the anaesthetic department.

Methods
Over a 1‐month period in February 2018 across Whiston and St Helens hospitals, we conducted patient surveys, 3 h into their postoperative period. The survey asked questions on patient attendance to pre‐operative clinics prior to surgery, receipt of PILs prior to surgery, patient understanding of the anaesthetic choices available and the associated risks and side effects of their anaesthetic including analgesics. Patients were also given the opportunity to give qualitative feedback regarding anaesthetic information given to them.

Results
Fifty patient surveys were completed. Eighty per cent (40/50) of patients attended a pre‐operative clinic prior to the date of surgery and 84% (42/50) of patients received our anaesthetic PILs. Ninety per cent (45/50) of patients felt that they had a good understanding of the anaesthetic choices available. A further 98% (49/50) of patients felt that they had a good understanding of risks associated with the anaesthetic procedure as well as the side effects (98% of patients) of the anaesthetic. Eighty‐four per cent (42/50) of patients felt that they had a good understanding of the side effects with analgesia. However, 12% (6/50) of patients did not receive any information on side effects of analgesic agents that were to be used.

Discussion
Our results demonstrate that efforts in ensuring patient understanding of anaesthetic choices and side effects by delivery of information through different modalities were satisfactory. However, we agree that further consideration and focus should be directed towards explaining to patients the side effects of analgesics that we use. We will therefore conduct a repeat cycle in the autumn of 2019 to re‐evaluate our practice.

Lee, T; Glennon, K. (2020). Assessing the quality of information delivered to patients in the pre-operative period. Anaesthesia. 75 (S2), 25

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