Participants: 53 subjects undergoing orthopaedic shoulder surgery, randomly assigned to the control group (n = 23) or treatment group (n = 30).
Interventions: At the preoperative visit, the treatment group viewed a two-minute educational video outlining postoperative guidelines. The video addresses expectations regarding postoperative pain and notably states, “The average patient takes three pain pills after surgery”. The treatment group received a video link in order to view the educational video at home. At the one-week preoperative appointment, the control group instead received standard of care verbal and written post-operative education. The treatment and control groups were discharged after surgery with an identical 30-day tramadol prescription.
Main Outcome Measures: The Recollection of Post-Operative Care survey, which asks "How many narcotic pills were you expected to take in the first 2 weeks?” and “How many narcotic pills did you actually take in the first 2 weeks?” and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) of pain (from 0 for "no pain" to 10 for "worst pain imaginable").
Results: Compared to the control group, treatment group patients expected to take fewer opioid pills during the two-week postoperative period (P=0.0067) and ultimately took fewer opioid pills during this period (P=0.0190). There is no significant difference in the two groups' VAS pain score at enrollment (P=0.1561) or at two weeks postoperatively (P=0.1065).
Conclusions: Patients who viewed the video expected to take fewer narcotics during the first two weeks after surgery, and ultimately took fewer narcotics during this time. There was no significant difference in the groups’ pain scores, suggesting that treatment group patients did not compromise their comfort. Perioperative educational videos may be an important piece of holistic pain management after elective orthopaedic procedures.