This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Some U.K. patients want shorter waits for surgery, even with higher risks

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

NOTTINGHAM, England — Some cataract patients here would prefer a short wait for surgery, even if it involved a greater risk of complications, a survey showed.

Prof. A.J. Avery and colleagues here with Queen’s Medical Centre surveyed 146 patients between the ages of 60 and 84 on a general practice register. The respondents ranked 11 “cataract surgery packages,” each containing different waiting list lengths, complication risks and surgeon grades. A conjoint analysis was performed to determine the relative importance of these factors for individuals and for the group as a whole.

For the group as a whole, 45.8% ranked the potential risk of complications as important, 41.1% ranked waiting time as important and 13.1% ranked surgeon grade as important. Some individuals were more concerned about complication risk while others were more concerned about waiting times. There was a strong negative correlation between importance scores for these factors (P < .001).

The study is published in the February issue of Quality & Safety in Health Care.