Comparison of patient quality of life scores and satisfaction after common orthopedic surgical interventions

Patient quality of life scores are commonly used to assess patient-reported satisfaction following orthopedic interventions. Our main aim was to review the satisfaction scores of four common orthopedic interventions in our tertiary institution, primary hallux valgus (HV) corrective surgery, primary single-level transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF), primary unilateral total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and primary total hip arthroplasty (THA). We retrospectively reviewed prospectively collected data on patients who underwent four different types of orthopedic surgeries using the SF-36 score and two questions adopted from North American Spine Society Questionnaire. The database of a tertiary hospital between January 2007 and December 2009 was reviewed. There were 3488, 374, 184 and 73 patients who underwent TKA, THA, TLIF and HV surgery, respectively. Patients who underwent primary TLIF, TKA and THA had significant degree of improvement in all aspects of SF-36 scores at 6 months and 2 years of follow-up (p < 0.001). Postoperatively at 2 years, the most satisfied postoperative patients were those who underwent THA (91.9 %), followed by TKA (90.5 %), TLIF (86.1 %) and HV (77.4 %). This study shows a significant degree of postoperative improvement in terms of SF-36 scores for common orthopedic interventions in particular to primary TKA, THA and TLIF at 6 months and 2 years of follow-up. With a significant degree of improvement in SF-36 scores postoperatively, this also translated into patient satisfaction and meeting their expectations of surgery.