Rehabilitation after THR: Telephone interview and individual support versus visits in outpatient clinic.

Results from a RCT carried out from 2006 to 2007 including 180 patients aged 65 years and over based on patients´ self-rated health and by using telephone interviews and individual counseling as intervention 2 and 10 weeks after discharge had a significant improvement in patients´ self-rated health by using SF-36 scores within 3 months after surgery, whereas the control group had improvement after 9 months. Both groups had SF-36 filled out preoperatively and 3, 6 and 9 months after THR. In a new study a sub group was identified by having a reduction in general health during 12 months postoperatively.
Aim:
To study the effect of intervention to patients after THR due to resources, organization and economy.
Material and method:
Based on power calculation 260 patients aged 18 years and over were enrolled from a waiting list. All patients had filled out SF-36 before surgery and 3, 6,9,12 months after. Participating patients were allocated to a control group or an intervention group after discharge. The intervention group had telephone-interviews and individual counseling 2 and 8 months after THR, and the control group had conventional visit in outpatient clinic 3 months after THR.
Outcome:
Patients in intervention and control group had improvement in their SF-scores, besides patients in the intervention group had improvement in postoperative symptoms within 8 weeks. The overall outcome was totally characterized by improvement in Patient reported Outcomes (PROMs).
A possibility now is being able to choose whether patients can be followed by telephone intervention or by visits in outpatient clinic or depending on an individual prescription by orthopaedics