You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 8, Issue 2
  • Arthritis symptoms, information sources, and a constantly shifting threshold of risk-benefit ratios influenced elderly patients’ decisions about total joint replacement

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Qualitative
Arthritis symptoms, information sources, and a constantly shifting threshold of risk-benefit ratios influenced elderly patients’ decisions about total joint replacement

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebn.8.2.63

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Clark JP, Hudak PL, Hawker GA, et al. The moving target: a qualitative study of elderly patients’ decision-making regarding total joint replacement surgery. J Bone Joint Surg Am 2004;86–A:1366–74.OpenUrl

    Q What are the decision making processes of elderly patients with severe arthritis who are unwilling to consider total joint replacement (TJR) surgery?

    DESIGN

    Qualitative.

    SETTING

    Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

    PATIENTS

    17 patients (age range 59–81 y, 53% women) who had severe arthritis (confirmed by Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index scores ⩾39 out of 100 points and x rays), and were unwilling to consider surgery.

    METHODS

    Patients were interviewed for a mean 2.5 hours using a semistructured interview guide to elicit the sources and nature of information they received about TJR and potential sources of support; and the preferences, motivation, and needs that were important when considering the general management of arthritis and TJR. Transcribed interview data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

    MAIN FINDINGS

    3 themes described patients’ decision making processes. (1) Factors influencing decisions. Patients differed in terms of the relative importance they placed on …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • For correspondence: Dr J P Clark, BMJ Publishing Group, BMA House, London, UK. jclarkbmj.com

    • Sources of funding: Medical Research Council of Canada and Canadian Arthritis Society.