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‘Significant’ costs inherent in long wait times for hip replacement
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A year-long wait for hip replacement surgery entails significant costs to both society and the patient, according to a new thesis from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
The research also notes that patients who suffer from anxiety and depression are more likely to report worse results after a hip replacement.
Drawing on approximately 40,000 responses from patients selected from the Swedish Hip Arthroplasty Register, the thesis looked at how hip replacement patients perceive their health-related quality of life and level of pain both before and after the operation – as well as how satisfied they are with the results.
“Although the majority report a considerable improvement in their health-related quality of life and are pain-free after their hip replacement, we show that around 5% to 10% do not improve or have actually deteriorated 1 year after the operation,” stated researcher Ola Rolfson, MD, in a release.
Rolfson noted in the research that there are several reasons for some patients simply not getting better in the short term. For example, patients with anxiety or depression are more likely to report worse results.
“Doing the right thing”
The thesis also focuses on how hip disease can impact a patient’s need for a variety of resources while waiting for a hip replacement — and how this translates into additional expense for the patient, the patient’s relatives, and society. The expense for the year before the operation was found to be around SEK 60,000 (approximately 6,000 Euro).
Longer waits were linked to higher consumption of resources. This higher consumption works out to around SEK 5,000-per-month (approx. 500 Euro) for every patient on the waiting list.
“Doing the right thing and doing it at the right time are the major challenges facing orthopedics in the future,” Rolfson stated in the release. “The thesis adds information that will make it possible for hip replacement surgery to take another step in the right direction.”
Rolfson also stated in the release that the results of the thesis will be used to help develop a tool that can predict and discuss the risks and expected results of surgery in each individual case.