Insights into supporting patients to prepare themselves for surgery

A study led by BRC researchers has provided insights that could help health professionals support patients to prepare themselves for surgery. The study is published in Musculoskeletal Care.

Prehabilitation is a way patients can help themselves be as fit as possible before surgery. This can help them recover better. But it involves patients adapting their behaviour in the months before surgery, which they may find difficult.

In this study, researchers used health psychology theory to understand what patients are going through when they take part in prehabilitation. They found there are three stages:

• Willingness to change their behaviour
• Making a change
• Keeping up the changes

For prehabilitation to be successful, patients need to be supported at each stage.

This study has shown that, when planning a prehabilitation programme, health professionals need to consider how they will support patients through each of these stages. They also need to balance designing an effective programme with creating one that is acceptable to patients and can be personalised.

The findings are based on interviews with eight patients undergoing prehabilitation to improve their sleep before total knee replacement surgery. Five were women and three were men.

These patients were part of the REST study. This larger study aims to find out whether prehabilitation aimed at improving patients’ sleep in the months before total knee replacement surgery helps with recovery.

Dr Katie Whale, study lead and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, said:

“Supporting patients to prepare for this surgery is important and gives them the best possible chance of having a good outcome.

“Making changes to our health behaviours and keeping these up over time is hard, and health psychology theory gives us guidance on how we can best support patients to do this.

“New prehabilitation programmes should consider each stage of behaviour change, and make sure support is in place for patients to keep them engaged and motivated.”