Systematic review on recovery specific quality-of-life instruments.

BACKGROUND

Postoperative recovery is a considerable issue in studies comparing operative techniques of similar effectiveness. In recent years, a shift has occurred toward patient-centered study outcomes such as quality-of-life questionnaires. The objective of this article is to provide a systematic review of the literature on general postoperative, recovery-specific quality-of-life instruments and their measurement properties.

METHODS

We searched the databases EMBASE.com, Cinahl, PsycINFO, and PubMed for articles reporting on postoperative, recovery-specific quality-of-life instruments. A checklist was used to assess the revealed studies and instruments. Existing quality criteria were applied to the measurement properties to compare the instruments.

RESULTS

The search strategy identified 620 studies, of which 18 studies reported on 12 different postoperative, recovery-specific quality-of-life instruments. None of the instruments had been validated completely in line with the 8 quality criteria, which were used to assess the measurement properties. Two instruments were clearly superior, which were the Postdischarge surgical recovery scale and the Quality of recovery-40.

CONCLUSIONS

No fully validated instrument is available for the assessment of general postoperative recovery. We advise to use the Postdischarge surgical recovery scale and the Quality of recovery-40 in future validation and application studies on short-term postoperative recovery.