Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Management, Perth Children's Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia.
Medical School, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.
Paediatr Anaesth. 2021 May;31(5):578-586. doi: 10.1111/pan.14153. Epub 2021 Feb 28.
Reasons for elective surgery cancelations and their impact vary from one institution to another. Cancelations have emotional and financial implications for patients and their families. Our service has a particularly broad and geographically diverse patient population; hence, we sought to examine these impacts in our service.
We identified families with procedural cancelations and administered a telephone questionnaire. Survey items included the reason for and timing of cancelation, how the family was informed, the mode of transport and distance traveled to the hospital, associated leave from work, expenses, whether the child was required to fast, missed school, as well as the child's and parent's emotional responses to the cancelation, along with overall parental satisfaction with how the cancelation was handled.
During our study period, a total of 7870 procedures were booked. 6734 (86%) of these were completed and 1136 (14%) were canceled, with 6% canceled on the day of surgery. In 750 (66%) of these cancelations, families were successfully contacted by telephone and agreed to participate. Of these 305 (41%) cancelations were family-initiated and 444 (59%) were hospital-initiated, with these hospital-initiated cancelations occurring closer to scheduled surgery. The most common cause of cancelation was that the child could not undergo the procedure due to illness (22%) or being unable attend the hospital (14%). The greatest disruption to families and children occurred when procedures were canceled late, particularly when the cancelation occurred on the day of the planned procedure.
择期手术取消的原因及其影响因机构而异。取消手术对患者及其家属会产生情绪和经济方面的影响。我们的服务对象具有广泛而多样化的地域特征；因此，我们希望在我们的服务中研究这些影响。
我们确定了有手术取消的家庭，并对他们进行了电话问卷调查。调查项目包括取消的原因和时间、通知方式、前往医院的交通方式和距离、相关的请假、费用、孩子是否需要禁食、是否缺课、孩子和家长对取消的情绪反应，以及家长对取消手术处理方式的总体满意度。
在我们的研究期间，共有 7870 个手术预约。其中 6734 个（86%）完成，1136 个（14%）取消，6%的手术在手术当天取消。在这些取消手术中，有 750 个（66%）家庭通过电话成功联系并同意参与调查。其中 305 个（41%）取消手术是由家庭发起的，444 个（59%）是由医院发起的，这些医院发起的取消手术更接近预定手术时间。取消手术的最常见原因是孩子因疾病（22%）或无法前往医院（14%）而无法进行手术。当手术被取消时，尤其是在计划手术当天取消时，对家庭和孩子的影响最大。
