Patient Education by Ehealth after total knee replacement: what are patients' preferences

Knee replacement surgery is one the most commonly performed surgical intervention in The Netherlands. After surgery, patients are often dismissed from the hospital after 2 or 3 days - which is quite demanding in terms of self-management (pain management, exercises, wound care, etc). In 2019 we published a study in which an app was used to provide patients with day-to-day information though an app (https://mhealth.jmir.org/2019/10/e15323). The information in this app was completely composed by health care providers. The aim of this qualitative study is to get in-depth knowledge about patients' preferences in terms of patient education during the 4 to 6 weeks after surgery. Based on this information, we can further adjust / improve the app from the former study. Finally, this provides us with an interesting comparison between what patients want to know and what health providers think / believe patients need (and want) to know.

Too little is known about patient preferences on (self management) education during the 4 to 6 weeks after total knee replacement surgery. We hypothesise this study will provide us with valuable insights on their preferences: type of information (what would they like to know), timing of the information (when is it relevant to them) and mode of information (how would they like to be educated (text, photo, video, game, quiz-like questions, etc). Furthermore, these insights will demonstrate how current (often health-care provider composed) patient information corresponds with patients' actual needs.

1 face-to-face interview, 1 focus group session