Determinants of Acceptance of Laparoscopic Surgery Among Residents in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Background: Modern surgical practice in the last 15 to 20years has witnessed established efficacy and safety of laparoscopic surgery. Patients’ or public perception of laparoscopic surgical procedures do affect patronage, and goes a long way to determine success of the practice. Aim: To ascertain the determinants of acceptance of laparoscopic surgeries among residents in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study of four hundred and ninety-three respondents was conducted. Self-administered semi-structured questionnaires were distributed over a period of three months in Port Harcourt in 2018, using stratified sampling method. Data obtained was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. Results: Sixty-six-point nine percent (66.9%) of respondents have not heard about laparoscopic surgery previously. Forty-four percent of respondents were willing to accept and pay for laparoscopic surgery in Port Harcourt. Only 1.2% were willing to pay more than ₦300,000.00 ($860) for most laparoscopic general surgery or gynaecologic procedures. Conclusion: It seems that Port Harcourt is a fertile ground for laparoscopic surgical practice with a little less than half of respondents willing to embrace laparoscopic surgery. Younger respondents with more access to information dominated the pool of acceptors hence more need to be done using various methods of information dissemination to improve acceptance.