Patient dissatisfaction after Mohs linked to wound healing, stages to tumor clearance

Key takeaways:

• Decreased satisfaction was reported in patients who underwent three or more surgical stages.
• Further studies are needed to help practitioners improve patients’ surgical experiences.

Patient satisfaction after Mohs micrographic surgery is affected by numerous factors that may change over time, according to a study.

“Understanding factors associated with patient satisfaction in dermatology has intrinsic value in its potential to help optimize patient care,” Katherine G. Thompson, MD, of the department of dermatology at Johns Hopkins University, and colleagues wrote. “In this study, we sought to investigate factors associated with patient satisfaction with [Mohs micrographic surgery (MMS)] for [non-melanoma skin cancer] at the time of surgery and at 3 months post-surgery.”

This prospective cohort study included 100 patients (71 men; aged 31-96 years) who completed patient satisfaction surveys at the time of surgery and 3 months after surgery.

Results showed that patients were unsatisfied if they were required to go through three or more MMS stages to achieve clearance of their tumor both at the time of surgery (P = .047) and 3 months after surgery (P = .0244).

From the time of surgery to 3 months after surgery, patients with surgical sites located on the extremities (P = 0.036), larger size of pre-operative lesions (P = 0.012) and larger defect sizes (P = 0.033) also reported a decrease in satisfaction.

“It is possible that improving patient education regarding expected wound healing in these scenarios may increase patient satisfaction,” Thompson and colleagues wrote.

The authors also noted that there was a “strikingly statistically significant” association between patient dissatisfaction and surgeries that extended past 1 p.m. (P = .019); however, the reasoning behind this dissatisfaction could not be determined.

According to Thompson and colleagues, all these associations were significant enough to warrant further investigation.

“Future studies further examining the relationships between patient satisfaction and the above factors could be useful in further guiding how we can improve our patients’ surgical experiences,” they wrote.