Objectives
To explore the perspective of urological patients on the possibility to defer elective surgery due to the fear of contracting COVID-19.
Methods
All patients scheduled for elective urological procedures for malignant or benign diseases at two high-volume Centres were administered a questionnaire, through structured telephone interviews, between 24
th
and 27
th
April 2020. The questionnaire included three questions: 1) In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, would you defer the planned surgical intervention? 2) If yes, when would you be willing to undergo surgery? 3) What do you consider potentially more harmful for your health: the risk of contracting COVID-19 during hospitalization or the potential consequences of delaying surgical treatment?
Results
Overall, 332 patients were included (51.5% and 48.5% in the oncology and benign groups, respectively). Of these, 47.9% patients would have deferred the planned intervention (33.3% vs 63.4%; p<0.001), while the proportion of patients who would have preferred to delay surgery for more than six months was comparable between the groups (87% vs 80%). These answers were influenced by patient age and ASA score (in the Oncology group) and by the underlying urological condition (in the benign group). Finally, 182 (54.8%) patients considered the risk of COVID-19 potentially more harmful than the risk of delaying surgery (37% vs 73%; p<0.001). This answer was driven by patient age and the underlying disease in both groups.
Conclusions
Our findings reinforce the importance of shared decision-making before urological surgery, leveraging patients’ values and expectations to refine the paradigm of evidence-based medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.