Development, Piloting and Evaluation of an Evidence-based Informed Consent Form for Total Knee Arthroplasty

University of Witten/Herdecke220 enrolled

Overview

Every medical intervention requires informed consent. Informed consent may include comprehensible information about the necessity and kind of the intervention, material risks and consequences or alternative treatments. Practitioners frequently use consent forms to support the physician-patient conversation and to document informed consent. Studies show, that informed consent forms used in practice, are heterogeneous. This study aims at investigating the effects of evidence-based informed consent forms for Total Knee Replacement and related anaesthesia procedures. Evidence-based informed consent forms include best and latest evidence in lay language. It is hypothesized that evidence-based informed consent forms - compared to standard consent forms - improve patients' risk perception, reduce anxiety of complications and reduce the nocebo effect (unspecific negative effects caused by the way of communicating risks). To compare evidence-based and standard informed consent forms, an Interrupted Time Series pilot study will be conducted. It is planned to include 220 patients, who are scheduled for elective total knee replacement surgery. The accompanying qualitative analyses ensure that the (German) legal requirements for informed consent are met.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

220

Conditions

Consent Forms Osteoarthritis, Knee Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee

Interventions

Evidence-based informed consent forms for total knee arthroplasty and related anesthesia procedures will be developed. The design of the evidence-based informed consent forms will be guided by an existing guideline on how to present evidence-based health information (guideline evidence-based health information) and nocebo research. The information will be presented in plain language. Benefits and harms of the procedures will be presented in absolute risk formats and in comparison with other interventions or placebo. Verbal presentations of risks lead to overestimations of risks and therefore, will not be applied exclusively. Gain and loss framing will be combined. To visualize important aspects, pictograms will be used. Information on uncertainty, missing or low quality evidence will be provided.

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Anxiety: Change from baseline anxiety after the informed consent procedure assessed by the surgical fear questionnaire and a numeric rating scale (0-10)

The surgical fear questionnaire is a validated questionnaire for measuring patient reported fear of surgery. The questionnaire includes the following items: fear of operation, fear of anaesthesia, postoperative pain, side effects, health deterioration, failed operation, incomplete recovery, long duration of rehabilitation.

Time frame: Anxiety will be measured at the day of consultation - approximately 4 weeks before surgery - (baseline) and one day before surgery

Nocebo-Effect: Proportion of patients with patient reported adverse events/complications and cummulaive number of adverse events/complications assessed by closed and open questions

The occurence of specific adverse events/complications (e.g. postoperative nausea and vomitting) will be queried. In addition it will be queried whether other adverse events/ complications not mentioned before have occurred.

Time frame: approximately three days after hospital discharge

Secondary Outcomes

Knowledge/risk perception: Proportion of correctly answered questions assessed by knowledge questions about benefits and risks of undergoing surgery

The objective knowledge questions (e.g. correct risk assessment) will be derived when developing the evidence-based informed consent forms. The development will be based on previous experiences with the measure of informed choice.

Time frame: One day before surgery

Mean satisfaction with the physician-patient-communication and informed consent form assessed by a numeric rating scale (0-10)

Patients will be queried about their overall satisfaction with the physician-patient-communication and with the informed consent form using a numeric rating scale (0-10)

Time frame: One day before surgery

Mean Quality of life (QoL) assessed by a numeric rating scale (0-10)

Patients will be queried about their current overall quality of life assessed by a numeric rating scale (0-10)

Time frame: approximately one month after hospital discharge

Mean pain and function of the knee assessed by the Oxford Knee Score

The Oxford Knee Score (OKS) is a validated patient reported outcome measure for patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty, that consists of 12 questions about the individual's activities of daily live and how they have been affected by pain over the preceding four weeks.