14 DAY TRIAL // Patients about to undergo cancer surgery, understand the procedure and its risks much better if they are presented to them on an interactive media, concluded researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
The researchers randomly chose 40 patients due to undergo radical prostatectomy and divided them into two groups, before presenting them with the surgical procedure.
The first group had standard surgery consent process, with medical staff explaining the procedure verbally, while the second group watched an interactive multimedia presentation (IMP).
After the presentations, both groups were asked a set of 26 questions about the surgery they were supposed to undergo.
The results showed that 78% of the IMP group had obtained very high scores, compared to only 57% of the control group.
After switching the two groups, the control group had improved its score by 11% after watching the IMP.
Co-author Dr Nathan Lawrentschuk from the University’s Department of Urology, explains that “our standard consent process comprised of patients receiving detailed information about the procedure from physicians and nurses, while the IMP provided consistent and animated information on the same topic.
“The 51-slide IMP covered basic anatomy, how the prostate works and how the operation is carried out; it also outlined possible complications and provided postoperative information.
“22 of the slides contained interactive questions that had to be answered correctly before the patient could move on to the next slide.”
This consent procedure was completed three and a half weeks before surgery, and the patients had an average age of 61.
Also, 70% of them in both groups, spoke English as their first language, both groups had similar education profile and the IMP only needed minimal computer skills.
The duration of the standard procedure was of 20 minutes, while the IMP took an average of 18 minutes.
Finally, most patients found the IMP easy to use and very clear in terms of the information provided.
Understanding the entire procedure and all the risks it involves is extremely important, because, as Dr Lawrentschuk says, “radical prostatectomy is a major procedure to remove the prostate gland and the cancer it contains.
“It is vital that patients facing major surgery are fully informed of the risks and benefits so that they can provide informed consent.
“We believe that using the IMP provides a better level of patient understanding than standard consent, by ensuring that the procedure and risks have been explained consistently and by actively testing the patient on the information they have received.
“However, it is important to stress that patients using the IMP also had plenty of opportunities to raise any concerns they had about their procedure, and their general health, with medical staff during their pre-surgical assessment.”
The authors remind that even if the IMP was designed for prostate cancer surgery, it could also be adjusted to any other kinds of surgery, the presentation could also be in many other languages and it could even have voices replacing much of the text.
“Ultimately IMP might also be used for educating medical staff such as nurses, medical students and trainee surgeons,” said Dr Lawrentschuk.
The research was published in the October issue of the urology journal BJUI, AlphaGalileo reports.