Outcomes after surgery and the real impact of children’s health literacy (OSTRICH)

The objective of this project is to assess if a child's health literacy score can predict outcome after their surgery as measured by the Pictorial adaptation of QoR-15F. Participants (children aged 8 -15 years old undergoing elective surgery at Perth Children's Hospital and their parents) will be approached by the research team to participate in the study, REDCap e-consents or paper consent forms will be used to collect consent for participation. Participants will be asked to complete an online questionnaire prior to their surgery. This questionnaire will include collection of child demographics (age, gender, sex), school year, primary caregiver's highest education attained, the Home Literacy Environment (HLE) single-item measure (number of children's books in the home), and each item of the translated HLS-Child-Q15 as well as the health literacy for the primary caregiver (HLA-EU-Q47). Three questions designed to measure self-efficacy (“I can trust in my knowledge and abilities,” “I can find a solution for most problems,” and “If I make an effort, I will succeed”, measured on a four-point scale of agreement) will also be included in the online child questionnaire). Data from the patient's medical records including their height, weight, respiratory risk factors, post operative nausea and vomiting risk factors, surgical speciality, type of surgical procedure, anaesthetic and PACU management on the day of surgery will also be collected. Further online surveys will be automatically sent to participants l 1 day, 7 days and 28 days after their surgeries via REDCap. These questionnaires will collect data on surgical outcomes including representations, pain management, return to normal function, healing and complications. We will also assess whether the recovery matches the parental and child expectations and how satisfied they were with their surgery and subsequent recovery. Participants will receive automatic reminders if they do not complete the survey. If they do not complete the survey, there will be attempts made to call the family and complete the survey over the phone. Recruitment for the study will continue until there are 300 complete sets of the three post-surgery questionnaires.