Optimizing the Patient for Surgery: The Pre-op Psychological Survey

 

A read-worthy article, recently published in OR Management News.

 

It is obvious that optimizing the patient prior to surgery is essential for maximizing desirable outcomes. While these efforts typically focus on managing comorbidities and assessing physiologic parameters, “comprehensive” optimization is achieved by including attention to the psychological status of the surgical patient.

With evolving specialization in surgery and increasing sophistication of procedures, psychological evaluations have become integral in the evaluation of patients for certain operations, such as bariatric, transplant and pain-related orthopedic surgeries.

The benefits of psychological “preparation” of surgical patients has been proposed as an important consideration.

Less developed, in contrast to specialized psychological evaluations, is a simple and broad approach to assessing every patient’s psychological state in a manner appropriate for use by the surgeon involved in the case. Psychological preparation of the patient requires a first step of evaluation through a preoperative psychological survey (POPS).

 

Read the full article at:  Optimizing the Patient for Surgery: The Pre-op Psychological Survey – OR Management News