title: Using self-assessed health to predict patient outcomes after total knee replacement.
abstract: Self-assessed health status has been shown to be a powerful predictor of mortality, service use, and total cost of medical care treatment. We investigated the potential for self-assessed health to further serve as a predictor of improvement in health status after a clinical intervention. Using the five-category measure of self-assessed health (excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor), we examined patients' improvements in health status after total knee arthroplasty in each of the WOMAC-defined categories for health status in patients. The results indicate that the greater patients rated their preoperative health, the greater their postoperative improvement. The results suggest that a simple process of asking patients to rate their own health in a presurgery clinic could be a powerful tool in predicting patient outcome. This also suggests that by stratifying preoperative self-assessed health, potential improvements in health status will be more fully captured.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA. Michael.Long@Wichita.edu
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Long
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: McQueen
authors.forename: Vinay G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Bangalore
authors.forename: John R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Schurman
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D007720:Knee Prosthesis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020370:Osteoarthritis, Knee / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery*; D010358:Patient Participation; D011184:Postoperative Period; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011300:Preoperative Care / Q000379:methods; D011336:Probability; D011379:Prognosis; D011475:Prosthesis Failure; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012649:Self Concept; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016896:Treatment Outcome