Patients' experiences of day surgery—an approach to quality control

Abstract

Patients' experiences are recognised as the focus of quality assurance in day surgery. One method of following up patients' outcomes and satisfaction is by telephone interview. A prospective survey was made of 217 randomly selected day surgery patients. A total of ten patients of the original study group were admitted to hospital and four were not reached by phone. The survey was completed with 203 patients. Of these, 11.3% (23.3% after general and 6.8% after spinal anaesthesia) had experienced nausea either at hospital, on their way home or at home. After discharge, 10.3% of the patients had experienced no pain but 4.5% rated their average pain very severe. At the time of the interview 31% had no pain, but three patients still rated their pain as very severe. A total of 2.3% of the spinal anaesthesia patients needed a blood patch and 10.6% spontaneously reported having experienced pain in the lower limbs or back. During the first 24 h after discharge, most of the patients felt well with only slight discomfort after the different anaesthetic techniques. A total of 90% were very pleased and 10% fairly pleased with their day surgery experience. None of the patients were dissatisfied.