Seeing is believing: Patients’ attitudes and information preferences towards robotic gynaecological surgery

Objectives

Robotic gynaecological surgery (RS) is reported to be associated with feelings of apprehension and anxiety pre-operatively in a proportion of patients. This study aimed to investigate patients’ understanding and perceptions towards RS, and whether the format of RS information resources could improve acceptability of RS.

Design

A two-phase, sequential, mixed methods study involving semi-structured interviews of patients who had previously undergone gynaecological RS and a block-randomised crossover study of women from the general public. Qualitative data from interviews were analysed using thematic analysis, quantitative data from questionnaires were summarised and analysed using Mann-Whitney U and Fisher's exact tests.

Results

Interview participants reported very little background knowledge of RS prior to their surgery. Many participants stated that written information leaflets did not adequately describe the robotic set-up and procedure, leading to anxiety and information seeking from alternative sources. The use of videos or models to visually demonstrate how the surgery would be performed and the interaction between the surgeon and the robot were proposed to address patients’ needs. Questionnaire data from 30 women demonstrated an increase in acceptability of RS following provision of information, with 73.3 % of the participants reporting that the video alone was an adequate source of information, compared to only 46.7 % for the printed leaflet.

Conclusion

This study gives new insights into the impact of information provision for patients undergoing RS. Availability of information resources in different modality formats, in particular an information video, may help address patients’ information needs, reduce anxiety and hence increase acceptability of RS.