Effect of High-quality Pre-operative Videos on Patient Anxiety Levels Prior to Ambulatory Hand Surgery

Previous research has shown that YouTube is a poor source of high-quality medical information. This is likely because there is no regulation of the content on YouTube and relatively little of the content is posted by qualified medical professionals. It is known that up to 30% of patients use the internet to research the procedure they will be having and given the increasing popularity of YouTube we suspect many patients are using YouTube or similar sites as a source of information prior to elective surgery. There are likely a number of patient factors that contribute to patients seeking out videos as a source of pre-operative medical information. Patient age, which is generally inversely correlated to computer literacy, may have a role. Patient anxiety and pre-operative worrying may cause a patient to turn to the internet to search for information, and the poor overall quality of the content available may worsen pre-operative anxiety.

The primary objective of this study is to determine if providing patients with a reliable, high-quality video about their condition and operation prior to surgery reduces pre-operative anxiety. Secondary aims are to determine the percentage of patients that independently seek out videos online as a source of medical information prior to elective hand surgery, identify patient attributes that are associated with this behavior, and understand if introducing high quality pre-surgical videos has an impact on post-operative patient outcomes and/or patient engagement. The investigators hypothesize that providing patients with high-quality pre-operative videos will reduce pre-operative anxiety. Its is also expected that patients who seek out videos on their own for pre-operative medical information will be younger and have higher anxiety levels and pain catastrophizing scores. Additionally, the investigators hypothesize that patients who watch high-quality pre-operative videos may have better short term post-operative outcomes and greater engagement in their care than their counterparts that did not watch videos or who sought out videos on their own.