Relationships among disease knowledge, social support, anxiety and self‐efficacy in patients after total knee arthroplasty: A chain mediating effect

Abstract

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative, chronic joint disease characterized by clinical symptoms and deformation of joint tissue, the main cause of pain and disability (Jang et al., 2021). As the population is aging, the morbidity of OA is increasing year by year, with a consequent increase in the personal and socio-economic burden (Hunter & Bierma-Zeinstra, 2019). Among them, osteoarthritis of the knee (KOA) is the most common, and the prevalence of symptomatic KOA is reported to be 10.3% (women) and 5.7%