Variation in orthopedic surgeons' perceptions of the indications for and outcomes of knee replacement

Abstract

Objective: To determine the agreement among orthopedic surgeons' indications for knee replacement, their perceptions of the usefulness of various treatments for osteoarthritis of the knee and their expected outcomes of knee replacement, and to determine the relation between these opinions and the number of knee replacement procedures performed by individual surgeons.

Design: Survey.

Setting: Ontario.

Participants: All 392 orthopedic surgeons in the province. Of the 325 practising traceable surgeons 234 (72.0%) responded.

Outcome measures: Indications for knee replacement, perceived usefulness of treatments for osteoarthritis, perceived outcomes of knee replacement and number of knee replacement procedures performed by individual surgeons.

Results: The respondents disagreed on how 20 of 34 patient characteristics affected their decision to perform knee replacement surgery. They also disagreed on the usefulness of seven of eight treatments for arthritis of the knee. The respondents demonstrated variation in their expected outcomes of knee replacement. The surgeons who performed more procedures judged, on average, the outcomes to be better and to have fewer complications than the surgeons who performed fewer procedures.

Conclusions: Orthopedic surgeons demonstrated disagreement about some of the indications for knee replacement, the usefulness of treatments for arthritis of the knee and the perceived outcomes of knee replacement. The areas of greatest disagreement should be the focus of future research and the development of practice guidelines.