Gaining the patient perspective on pelvic floor disorders’ surgical adverse events

Background The Institute for Healthcare Improvement defines an adverse event as an unintended physical injury resulting from or contributed to by medical care that requires additional monitoring, treatment, or hospitalization or that results in death. The majority of research has focused on adverse events from the provider’s perspective. Objective The objective of this qualitative study was to describe patient perceptions on adverse events following surgery for pelvic floor disorders. Study Design Women representing the following 3 separate surgical populations participated in focus groups: (1) preoperative (women Results Eighty-one women participated in 12 focus groups. Group demographics were similar between groups, and all groups shared similar perspectives regarding surgical expectations. Women commonly reported an unclear understanding of their surgery and categorized adverse events such as incontinence, constipation, nocturia, and lack of improvement in sexual function as very severe, ranking these comparably with intensive care unit admissions or other major surgical complications. Women also expressed a sense of personal failure and shame if symptoms recurred. Conclusion Women consider functional outcomes such as incontinence, sexual dysfunction, and recurrence of symptoms as severe adverse events and rate them as similar in severity to intensive care unit admissions and death.