Measurement of quality of recovery in 5672 patients after anaesthesia and surgery

Abstract

Quality of recovery after an operation is an important dimension of the patient's experience and may be related to the quality of anaesthesia care. Satisfaction with anaesthesia is a vital component of quality care but difficult to measure. We examined our database of 5672 adult patients to determine if quality of recovery is associated with satisfaction with anaesthesia and to identify the perioperative factors that might influence both these outcome measures. We found that a nine-item quality of recovery score ('QoR Score') was related to satisfaction with anaesthesia (P < 0.0005): the overall level of satisfaction was high (97.2%; median QoR Score 16); 106 patients (2.1%; median QoR Score 14) were 'somewhat dissatisfied' and 32 patients (0.6%; median QoR Score 13) were 'dissatisfied' with their anaesthesia care. Patients who experienced any of a number of perioperative complications had lower QoR Scores (P < 0.0005). We have further demonstrated the validity and clinical utility of the QoR Score, and in particular its relationship to patient satisfaction in adult surgical patients.