The Patient Experience for Total Hip and Knee Replacements
As a part of my coursework at Bentley University, I, along with a group of other students conducted a study for a client in the medical devices industry.
Research questions:
Where do patient knowledge gaps exist during the process of preparing for and recovering from a total hip or knee replacement?
What do hip and knee replacement patients wish they knew going into a total replacement procedure?
How can healthcare providers provide a better educational experience to their patients before undergoing a total hip or knee replacement procedure?
Method
Semi-structured interviews:
We recruited twenty-two hip and/or knee replacement patients and healthcare providers and conducted semi-structured interviews. We developed an interview guide to help us steer the conversations and collect consistent data across multiple interviewers, but kept the interviews semi-structured to allow for some flexibility to ask follow up questions.
Data analysis:
Grounded theory analysis was used to perform a qualitative analysis of our interview data. We reviewed and coded the data based on emerging themes. The codes were then used to form categories and concepts which are the grounds of our theories and findings.
Key takeaways:
Based on our findings we identified the following gaps in educational content that should be addressed:
Benefits and risks of opioid usage for effective pain management
Alternative pain management methods to opioids
Emphasis on consistency with physical therapy
Explanation of how devices function - range of motion and mobility
Phases of healing in the recovery process
We also determined that preferred educational methods varied widely based on individual patient preferences and their varying recovery experiences. As a result, materials and methods of education should be provided in varying formats specific to the patients’ preferences, and with a range of recovery exercise options.
If you’d like to read the full report, please fill out my contact form below.