Background: The use of visual aids to enhance patient learning is becoming increasingly common in medicine. Patients with a better understanding of surgical procedures tend to have better long-term outcomes due to the active seeking of help when complications occur postsurgery. We hypothesized that showing patients an animation of ureteroscopy with instructions on how to address potential complications would increase their understanding of the perioperative nature of ureteroscopy.
Methods and materials: Fifty patients were selected between May and August 2019. The group consisted of patients who had recently undergone ureteroscopy for nephrolithiasis or who would undergo ureteroscopy in the near future. Patients were given a prevideo assessment, followed by video and postvideo assessments. The prevideo and postvideo assessments were multiple choice and identical, except for 3 additional questions at the end of the postvideo assessment asking about patient opinions regarding the video. Patients were unaware that they would be completing a postvideo assessment until they had finished watching the video.
Results: When asked about the symptoms of a urinary tract infection postprocedure, 72% of patients answered incorrectly, with 58% choosing “go to the emergency department immediately,” in the prevideo assessment versus 6% in the postvideo assessment (p < 0.05). If bleeding was a possible side effect of the procedure, 20% versus 0% answered incorrectly (p < 0.05). When asked about stent placement after surgery, 6% versus 0% answered incorrectly. One hundred percent of patients in both assessments answered correctly that stones would be removed and a scope was inserted into the urethra. Ninety-four percent of patients noted the video was presented in a very clear way, 80% noted that the video increased their understanding of the procedure “a lot,” and 82% noted the video increased the quality of their visit “a lot.”
Conclusions: Using an animated video to explain ureteroscopy and laser lithotripsy is beneficial.
Acknowledgments
None.
Statement of ethics
This study was approved by the institutional review board of Univeristy of Kentucky. All participants were given informed consent and were agreeable to participate in the project. All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare no direct or indirect conflict of interest related to this study.
Funding source
None.
Author contributions
AP, AH: Project development, data collection and analysis, manuscript writing/editing;
JB, JRB, AB: Project development, data collection.
Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
| [1] |
Nair SC, Satish KP, Sreedharan J, Ibrahim H. Assessing health literacy in the eastern and middle-eastern cultures. BMC Public Health 2016;16:831.
|
| [2] |
Chang ME, Baker SJ, et al. Dos Santos Marques IC, Health literacy in surgery. Health Lit Res Pract 2020; 4(1):e46-e65.
|
| [3] |
Eltorai AE, Naqvi SS, Ghanian S, et al. Readability of invasive procedure consent forms. Clin Transl Sci 2015; 8(6):830-833.
|
| [4] |
Scales CD Jr., Smith AC, Hanley JM, Saigal CS. Urologic Diseases in America Project. Prevalence of kidney stones in the United States. Eur Urol 2012; 62(1):e67.
|
| [5] |
Wright AE, Rukin NJ, Somani BK. Ureteroscopy and stones: Current status and future expectations. World J Nephrol 2014; 3(4):243-248.
|
| [6] |
Leslie SW, Sajjad H, Murphy PB. [Updated 2020 Jul 1]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. In: Renal Calculi. Treasure Island, FL: StatPearls Publishing; 2020.
|
| [7] |
Foster G, Stocks C, Borofsky MS. Emergency department visits and hospital admissions for kidney stone disease, 2009. In: Healthcare cost and utilization project (HCUP) statistical briefs [internet]. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2006; 2012: Statistical brief #139.
|
| [8] |
Scales CD Jr., Saigal CS, Hanley JM, et al. The impact of unplanned postprocedure visits in the management of patients with urinary stones. Surgery 2014; 155(5):769-775.
|
| [9] |
Sudore RL, Schillinger D. Interventions to improve care for patients with limited health literacy. J Clin Outcomes Manag 2009; 16(1):20-29.
|
| [10] |
Hu W, Song Y, Zhong X, Feng J, Wang P, Huang C. Improving doctor-patient communication: Content validity examination of a novel urinary system-simulating physical model. Patient Prefer Adherence 2016;10:2519-2529.
|
| [11] |
Sand-Jecklin K, Coyle S. Efficiently assessing patient health literacy: The BHLS instrument. Clin Nurs Res 2014; 23(6):581-600.
|
| [12] |
Koster ES, Philbert D, Bouvy ML. Health literacy among pharmacy visitors in the Netherlands. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf 2015; 24(7):716-721.
|
| [13] |
Levy H, Janke A. Health literacy and access to care. J Health Commun 2016;21(Suppl):43-50.
|
| [14] |
Koster ES, Schmidt A, Philbert D, van de Garde EMW, Bouvy ML. Health literacy of patients admitted for elective surgery. Z Gesundh Wiss 2017; 25(2):181-186.
|
| [15] |
Wieslander CK, Alas A, Dunivan GC, et al. Misconceptions and miscommunication among Spanish-speaking and English-speaking women with pelvic organ prolapse. Int Urogynecol J 2015; 26(4):597-604.
|
| [16] |
Du C, Lee W, Lucioni A, Kobashi K, Lee U. Do patient education materials on female pelvic floor disorders meet readability standards? Putting them to the test. Urol Pract 2020; 7(4):288-293.
|
| [17] |
Kim JW, Lee YJ, Chung JW, et al. Clinical characteristics of postoperative febrile urinary tract infections after ureteroscopic lithotripsy. Investig Clin Urol 2018; 59(5):335-341.
|
| [18] |
Merandy K, Morgan MA, Lee R, Scherr DS. Improving self-efficacy and self-care in adult patients with a urinary diversion: A pilot study. Oncol Nurs Forum 2017; 44(3):E90-E100.
|
| [19] |
Michou M, Panagiotakos DB, Lionis C, Costarelli V. Low health literacy and perceived stress in adults: Is there a link? Cent Eur J Public Health 2021; 29(3):195-200.
|
| [20] |
Bahrami M, Behbahani MA. The effect of a health literacy promotion program on the level of health literacy and death anxiety in women with breast cancer. Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res 2019; 24(4):286-290.
|
| [21] |
Algorani EB, Gupta V. Coping mechanisms. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island, FL: StatPearls Publishing; 2022.
|
PDF
(611KB)
