AUTHOR=Linedale Ecushla C. , Bills Eleanor , Dimopoulos Anastasia , Yeoh Jackie , Nolan Mandy , Hume Vicki , Coles Sharyn , Andrews Jane M. 

TITLE=Development of a feasible and acceptable digital prehabilitation pathway to improve elective surgical outcomes

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Digital Health

VOLUME=5

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/digital-health/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2023.1054894

DOI=10.3389/fdgth.2023.1054894

ISSN=2673-253X

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Objective(s)</title><p>To codesign and assess the feasibility, acceptability, and appropriateness of a hospital-initiated, community delivered approach to health optimization (prehab) prior to planned surgery.</p></sec><sec><title>Design</title><p>Participatory codesign combined with a prospective, observational cohort study (April–July 2022).</p></sec><sec><title>Setting</title><p>A large metropolitan tertiary referral service with 2 participating hospitals.</p></sec><sec><title>Participants</title><p>All people referred for orthopaedic assessment for joint replacement surgery (hip or knee) triaged as category 2 or 3. Exclusions: category 1; no mobile number. Response rate 80%.</p></sec><sec><title>Intervention</title><p><italic>My PreHab Program</italic> is a digitally enabled pathway that screens participants for modifiable risk factors for post-operative complications and provides tailored information to enable health optimization prior to surgery with the help of their regular doctor.</p></sec><sec><title>Outcome measures</title><p>Acceptability, feasibility, appropriateness, and engagement with the program.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>36/45 (80%) registered for the program (ages 45–85 yrs.), completed the health-screening survey and had ≥1 modifiable risk factor. Eighteen responded to the consumer experience questionnaire: 11 had already seen or scheduled an appointment with their General Practitioner and 5 planned to. 10 had commenced prehab and, 7 planned to. Half indicated they were likely (<italic>n</italic> = 7) or very likely (<italic>n</italic> = 2) to recommend <italic>My PreHab Program</italic> to others. The <italic>My PreHab Program</italic> scored an average 3.4 (SD 0.78) for acceptability, 3.5 (SD 0.62) for appropriateness, and 3.6 (SD 0.61) for feasibility, out of a score of 5.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion(s)</title><p>This digitally delivered intervention is acceptable, appropriate, and feasible to support a hospital-initiated, community-based prehab program.</p></sec>