Whether patients report depression ahead of spine surgery could affect how they rate their outcome and experience at the hospital, according to a new study published in Spine.
Study authors examined how patients who underwent cervical spine surgery from 2013 to 2015 filled out the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, which scores patient experience and is used as a mechanism to influence how hospitals are paid. The study included surveys from 145 patients and researchers found:
1. The patients who reported depression were more likely younger patients and had higher preoperative neck pain scores. These patients also reported lower health-related quality of life scores, according to the report.
2. Patients who reported depression also logged lower satisfaction scores in the questions related to the physician's respect and physicians listening to them.
3. The depressed patients were less likely to feel like their physicians respected them than patients who did not report preoperative depression. By the results, 97.1 percent of the non-depressed patients reported their spine surgeons treated them with courtesy and respect, compared to 87.8 percent of the depressed patients.
4. Researchers concluded that patients with preoperative depression had negative perceptions of physician communication in the HCAHPS survey. "These results highlighted depression as a risk factor for worse patient experience communicating with their spine surgeon," stated the authors.