Comparing Surgeon And Patient Health Preferences

Main Category: Cosmetic Medicine / Plastic Surgery
Article Date: 22 Oct 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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Surgery comes with great expectations and great risks for complications. Patients and their surgeons each may have preferences for outcomes after surgery. But are their preferences the same or do they differ?

A recent study, "A comparison of physician and patient time tradeoffs for postoperative hip outcomes", published in Value in Health, looks at this issue. The researchers, led by health economists Jason Doctor and Ning Gu, University of Southern California School of Pharmacy, and orthopedic surgeons Christopher Wolf, Paul Manner and Seth Leopold, University of Washington, questioned medical patients and orthopedic surgeons about their views on hip surgery outcomes. Specifically, researchers asked both groups if they would opt for shorter survival times in good health or longer survival times in various levels of poor health. Physicians were questioned on the decisions they were making for their patients.

While the overall results were similar between physicians and patients, a significant discrepancy surfaced with respect to severe health conditions. Physicians were somewhat more willing to accept reduced lifespan with a better quality of life than were patients.

The complete study is available in Value in Health, the official journal of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR).

Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) publishes papers, concepts, and ideas that advance the field of pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research and help health care leaders to make decisions that are solidly evidence-based. The journal is published bi-monthly and has a regular readership of over 4,000 clinicians, decision-makers, and researchers worldwide. ISPOR is a nonprofit, international organization that strives to translate pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research into practice to ensure that society allocates scarce health care resources wisely, fairly, and efficiently.

ISPOR