Evaluation of person-centred care after hip replacement-a controlled before and after study on the effects of fear of movement and self-efficacy compared to standard care

BACKGROUND: The goal of total hip arthroplasty (THA) is optimal pain relief and a normalized health-related quality of life. Anxious patients describe more pain and more difficulties than non-anxious patients during rehabilitation after THA. The aims of the present study were twofold: (1) to identify vulnerable patients using the general self-efficacy scale (GSES) and the Tampa scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK), and (2) to evaluate if person-centred care including the responses of the instruments made rehabilitation more effective in terms of shortening hospital length of stay. METHODS: The design of the study was quasi-experimental. Patients scheduled for THA, a control group (n = 138) and an intervention group (n = 128) were consecutively recruited. The intervention was the provision of person-centred care which was designed to reduce the negative effects of low self-efficacy and high levels of pain-related fear of movement. RESULTS: Patients with low GSES in the intervention group had shorter length of stay (LoS) by 1.6 days (95 % CI 0.16-3.15) p-value 0.03. Patients with high TSK in the intervention group had shorter LoS by 2.43 days (95 % CI 0.76-4.12) p-value 0.005. For patients who had both, the reduction of LoS was 2.15 days (95 % CI 0.24-4.04) p-value 0.028. CONCLUSIONS: The GSES and the TSK instrument were found useful as tools to provide information to support patients which reduced the LoS by 1.67 days in the whole intervention group (95 % CI 0.72-2.62) p-value 0.001. More importantly, vulnerable patients such as ASA group 3 probably gained the most from the extra support, they had a reduction with 6.78 days (95 % CI 2.94-10.62) p-value 0.001.