None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
We aim to develop and test a patient education pamphlet aimed at educating surgical patients about their surgical team makeup and about the level of experience of those doing their procedures. We will evaluate whether information delivered in the form of a preoperative pamphlet helps patients to understand the make up of their surgical team with the hope this leads to better informed consent, more patient satisfaction and better patient understanding of their own surgical care. The Medical Council of New Zealand states that if a ‘Student or Trainee is present during a consultation he or she should be formally introduced to the Patient’ . However, there is no current guidance on how the trainee should be introduced to help the patient identify them and understand their roll. There are also no guidelines in place for when the entire consultation, or operation, will be performed by a trainee or junior registrar, without a consultant in the room. A recent study performed at Christchurch hospital indicated that the terms used to denote seniority, i.e. house officer, registrar and consultant, are meaningless to the majority of our patients . Previous studies in medical literature have shown that patients may decline treatment if they know a resident (junior registrar) is doing the procedure , but studies also show that general public understanding about the level of training of their doctor is poor. On top of this, studies on patients undergoing surgery have suggested that patients worry about whether the people involved in their care are appropriately trained, and feel that they want to know about their surgeons’ level of experience . Our study plans to survey a group of patients about their knowledge of their surgical team, we then plan to introduce an educational pamphlet and repeat the survey on a second cohort of patients to see if the pamphlet improves awareness and potentially improves patient satisfaction and knowledge.
Interventions
Aims
To develop and test a patient education pamphlet aimed at educating surgical patients about their surgical team makeup and about the level of experience of those doing their procedures.
Study Phase 1
We plan to distribute post procedure questionnaires to 110 post surgical patients on both the Plastics and Orthopaedic wards over a period of 4 weeks. This group of patients termed is termed the Alpha survey group.
Study Phase 2
We plan to distribute an educational pamphlet pre-operativel
Aims To develop and test a patient education pamphlet aimed at educating surgical patients about their surgical team makeup and about the level of experience of those doing their procedures. Study Phase 1 We plan to distribute post procedure questionnaires to 110 post surgical patients on both the Plastics and Orthopaedic wards over a period of 4 weeks. This group of patients termed is termed the Alpha survey group. Study Phase 2 We plan to distribute an educational pamphlet pre-operatively about the structure and roles of surgical teams to all patients on both the Plastics and Orthopaedic wards over a period of 4 weeks. Post procedure questionnaires will be distributed to 110 post surgical patients on both the Plastics and Orthopaedic wards over the same period of 4 weeks. This group of patients is termed the Beta survey group. There will be a 2 week break between the two survey groups. The pamphlet distributed details the make up of a surgical team, the roles of each team member, the experience of each team member and the hierarchy of the team. The pamphlet will be given to all surgical patients during the trial period regardless of wether they choose to complete the survey or not.
Sponsors
Christchurch Hospital
Study design
Allocation
Non-randomised trial
Intervention model
Other
Primary purpose
Educational / counselling / training
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
16 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
All acute patients undergoing surgery at Christchurch Public Hospital under the care of Plastics and Orthopaedic teams on Wards 18, 19 and 20 during the study period will be asked to enrol in the study. Only patients ages 16 and over are on these wards. The Study will run over a 5-week period with a 1-week hiatus between the Alpha and Beta survey groups. All patients undergoing surgery will be invited to participate, patients who cannot consent will be exclude. A paragraph detailing consent for the survey will be at the beginning of the survey.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria: 1: Patient choice 2: Unable to consent for the survey 3: Age less than 16 years
Outcome results
None listed