Perioperative worries associated with low acceptance of day surgery among outpatients in Zhejiang Province, China: a survey research

Abstract Background:Day surgery, a popular medical practice in the United States, started rather late in mainland China since 2001 when day surgery was officially launched. Determining Chinese patients’ specialty and attitudes towards day surgery is important for proactive patient education to promote day surgery in China. At present, Chinese patients’ attitudes towards day surgery are blurred with only few relevent research.The goal of this study was to investigate Chinese patients’ specialty, especiallyperioperative worries,and its relationship with patients’ attitudestowardsday surgery in Zhejiang Province, China. Methods: A total of 412 outpatients in Zhejiang Hospital were evaluated by a cross-sectional questionnaire survey between January 2019 andFebruary 2019.To evaluate outpatients’ specialtyand attitudes towardsday surgery, 420 outpatients were asked to fill out questionnaires including their characteristics, perioperative worry and acceptance of day surgery. Multinomial Logistic regression model was used to assess the relationship between them. Results:Of the 412 outpatients, 83.5% reported perioperative worries about day surgery. Outpatients who were older, less-educated, with comorbidities and lower income were more worried perioperatively and had poorer acceptance of day surgery. Outpatients worriedmost aboutpreoperative examinations not being done timely and being unable to monitor and manage complications and adverse events. Age, educated degree, comorbidities, financial status, surgery type and perioperative worry hadsignificantassociations with patient acceptance of day surgery.Outpatients with worries significantly scored lowerin acceptance of day surgery than those without worries, thus had a higher risk of refusing day surgery. Compared with less-educated patients, perioperative worries played a greater role in decreasing patient reception of day surgery in better-educated patients, reducing the possibility of acceptingday surgery. Conclusions:Perioperative worry was identified as an independent factor in influencing patient acceptance of day surgery among outpatients in ZheJiang Province in China.Results of this study can be used to guide patient education according to patients’ characteristics in day surgery, helping promote day surgery in China.