Patient preferences and factors related to the pre-procedure process at a large, urban county hospital

Abstract

Background: Evaluation of the pre-procedural process prior to endoscopic procedures has never been conducted. Methods: Prospective cross-sectional, multi-language survey was administered to outpatients undergoing endoscopy at a large, diverse county hospital that examined patients’ pre-procedural preferences. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between patient preferences and several patient-related variables. Results: 128/156 outpatients completed the survey. The majority of respondents were female (53.1%), did not speak English (61.7%), were of Asian (39.1%) or Hispanic (29.7%) racial background, and had a mean age of 56.1 ± 15.7 years. Most patients underwent colonoscopy (48.4%) with 90.6% of patients knowing the indication for their procedure. While waiting for their endoscopic procedure, 42.2% of patients preferred waiting in a gurney while 28.1% preferred to wait in a chair. In terms of being comfortable wearing a hos- pital gown and sitting in a chair or gurney in the pre-procedure area, mean patient anxiety scores were 5.2 ± 3.3 and 6.1 ± 3.2, respectively (scale of 1 - 10). Race was associated with several pre-procedural patient preferences; Hispanics were less comfortable than Asians wearing a hospital gown while sitting in a chair with other patients prior to their procedure (OR = 0.3, CI 0.1 - 1.0) while Whites and African-Americans were less likely than Asians to prefer sitting in a chair as compared to a gurney before their procedure (OR = 0.09, CI 0.008 - 0.9 and OR = 0.07, CI 0.007 - 0.8, respectively). Patients who had undergone a prior endoscopic procedure were less comfortable wearing a hospital gown and sitting in a chair (OR = 0.3, CI 0.1 - 0.7) or gurney (OR = 0.4, CI 0.2 - 1.0) in the pre-procedure area. Conclusion: A patient’s race and having had a prior endoscopic procedure were the most powerful predictors on pre-procedure patient preferences while sex, type of endoscopic procedure and patient knowledge of the indication for their procedure were not. Our study highlights the importance of patient preferences and factors involved in the pre procedure process at a large, diverse county hospi tal.