Patient satisfaction after laparoscopic hernia repair

Summary

Laparoscopic hernia repair is a relatively new surgical procedure to the United Kingdom and it is important to assess patients' reaction. We investigated (by postal questionnaire) the satisfaction experienced by the first 106 patients (including eight patients with bilateral repairs) who had undergone pre-peritoneal laparoscopic hernia repair under the care of one surgeon (D.C.D.). The response rate was 82.1%. The results were scored on a scale of 1 (very unhappy) to 5 (very happy). The mean satisfaction score for the procedure was 4.85 (range 3–5). Of the 67.8% of patients who were treated as day cases, 98.3% were glad to have been treated on this basis. In retrospect, nearly half (46.4%) of those who went home the day following surgery would have preferred to have been treated as day cases. We also found that only 43.7% of patients took any analgesia post-operatively, among those that did the mean requirement was 8.8 tablets of paracetamol. We believe that these results provide strong evidence of the very high acceptability of the procedure to patients and its suitability as a day-case procedure in experienced hands.

Key Words:

• laparoscopic hernia repair
• satisfaction
• day case