Vinay Tantuway1 , Neethu Shaji2
Undergoing surgery is a very stressful experience. Orthopaedic emergency surgeries are different from elective surgeries, patients have ample time to understand the surgical procedure and their expectations are high since most of the time patients are able to do their activities of daily living and routine lifestyle is not compromised. So, patients prefer hospital and surgeon of there choice. Not all orthopaedic surgeons perform arthroscopic surgeries because of learning curve and the instruments required to perform them. So, many a times arthroscopist has to go to the patient on demand of the referring general orthopaedic surgeon and perform surgery on their behalf. This study was conducted to assess the perceived met & unmet needs between two group of patients, those go directly or referred to arthroscopist and followed up by him (Group A) and whose surgery was performed by arthroscopist on behalf of orthopaedic surgeon without the knowledge of patient (Group B). A descriptive exploratory study was conducted using needs met inventory in which telephonic interviews of 90 patients operated for Arthroscopic ACL reconstruction (between Jan 2013 to Dec 2013) operated by same surgeon was done. Needs met inventory tool was designed over the experiences patients had during his/her arthroscopic surgery, from OPD consultation to post op rehabilitation. There were 48 patients in Group A and 42 patients in Group B. It was found that in Group A, 34(70.83%) needs were met and only 14(29.16%) patients needs were unmet whereas in Group B, out of 42 patients only 18(42.85%) needs were met whereas 24(57.14%) patientâ??s needs were unmet. Unpaired „tâ?? test was used to find out the difference in perception of two groups, the two-tailed P value is 0.0001. By conventional criteria, the difference is considered to be extremely statistically significant. It was concluded that satisfaction of the patient is significantly more in group A than group B, i.e. if the patients get consultation and follow-up with the surgeon who is operating upon them.
