Objective: Patients considering surgery face many uncertainties and concerns. This investigation sought to develop an objective assessment tool for characterizing the areas of greatest concern among those considering thyroidectomy.
Study design: Prospective cohort design.
Setting: Tertiary-care otolaryngology practice.
Subjects: Participants included individuals presenting with a thyroid nodule found to be of intermediate risk (15%-20%) of cancer based on fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy and amendable to hemithyroidectomy.
Methods: As part of validating a clinical measure concerning perioperative concerns, patients presenting with thyroid nodules amendable to hemithyroidectomy were voluntarily recruited. Thirty individuals (6 men, 24 women) completed a novel 18-item questionnaire during their initial clinical visit and again 3 days later. Outcome measures included descriptive statistics and test-retest reliability.
Results: Individual patients have both general and specific preoperative concerns. A wide range of responses was obtained across the entire spectrum of the survey. The questionnaire demonstrated fair-to-excellent test-retest reliability, with correlation values from 0.467 to 0.954. Between-rater reliability was consistent with intraclass correlation coefficient values of 0.52 to 0.86. No relationship between question order and patient response was identified. Women were found to be more concerned about scar appearance (P = .028), and men were conversely more concerned about resuming daily activities (P = .026).
Conclusions: Patients considering thyroidectomy have concerns that remain stable in the early preoperative period. This is the first study to evaluate preoperative patient concerns and preliminarily establishes the Western Surgical Concern Inventory-Thyroid as a means of ensuring adequate patient counseling and a method of evaluating preoperative patient education.