Remembering what the doctor said: how much of medical information will the patient remember?

Introduction. Patients must be fully informed about their disease, about different variants of the treatment of their disease, complications and prognosis to make decisions to accept the treatment. The most important they should be able to remember this information.
The aim of the study was studying the level of learned information by patients about the upcoming surgery “removal of vestibular schwannoma”.
Materials and methods. 44 patients with vestibular schwannoma were included in this prospective study. Average age was 39,8 + 7,2 years, gender distribution was 16 males and 28 females. Education: secondary special – 56,82, and higher – 43,18 %. We used scales for evaluation “Checklist. Surgery to removal of vestibular schwannoma” developed by authors, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) in the adaptation by Y.L. Hanin, assessment of depression – The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale by Zigmond A.S., Snaith R.P. (HADS). R-Studio (Version 1.0.1532009–2017 RStudio) was used for statistical analisis.
Results. Patients were able to remember correctly 24,8 % of medical information on the next day after consultation by a neurosurgeon on average. We got negative correlation between anxiety, depression to the level of information assimilated by patients (r = –0,52; r = –0,47; r = –0,85, respectively). The higher level of anxiety and depression before surgery led to decrease remembering of medical information by the patients.
Conclusion. The level of remembering of the medical information by the patient about their disease was low. Quantity of the remembering information depends on the level of anxiety and depression of patients. It is necessary to increase remembering of medical information by patients because of it is allowing to improve the results of treatment.

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