Abstract PR390

Abstract

Background & Objectives: Knowing how patients judged anesthesia adverse outcomes (AAO) helped anesthesiologists to customise their service. However, generalizing ‘willingness to pay’ (WTP) studies done in Western population1 for Singaporean population might be unsuitable due to different cultural and heath care economic structure. The purpose of this study was to capture the Singaporean perspective of AAO. Materials & Methods: Upon approval from IRB, 132 patients recruited in the pre-anaesthetic clinic were given questionnaires describing 10 possible post-anaesthetic adverse outcomes to rank for undesirability (1 = most undesired and 10 = least undesired) and assign relative value through proportioning 100 hypothetical “dollars” to avoid their occurrence, with instructions to spend preferentially on those they wish to avoid. This was analysed with reference to patients’ background and anaesthetic history. Ranking and relative value was calculated for frequency distribution in terms of median and interquartile range and correlation between the two was measured with Spearman-Rank correlation. Results: Results showed a strong positive linear correlation between undesirable ranking and relative value for the top 3 AAOs (r = 0.799, p-value < 0.01). However, the positive correlation was not seen thereafter. In subgroup analysis, comparing younger (age ≤50) versus older age groups, there was a significant difference seen on ranking to avoid orodental trauma (P<0.05). Nausea was ranked higher in importance to avoid among females and those with previous AAO.Table 1.: Results of Ranking and Relative Values Scores of AAOConclusion: Similar to previous studies in Western populations, pain, vomiting and nausea were the top three AAO which Singaporean wish to avoid. However, discrepancies were seen in spending attitudes between Singaporean and Western patients, possibly accounted for by differences in healthcare socioeconomics and views on permanency of outcome. This study provided better understanding of Singaporean patients’ perspective to AAO and could result in better customised anaesthetic service.