Patient satisfaction three months after elective spine surgery for degenerative spine disease, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: A one-year prospective study

Objective: The objective of this study is to estimate the level of patient satisfaction and associated factors after elective spine surgery for degenerative spine disease in four teaching hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methodology: The author made a prospective study on patients who underwent elective spine surgery for degenerative spine disease in TASH, MCM, Alert and ZMH hospitals from December 1/2020 to July 30/2021. Data was collected using a standard questionnaire from participants starting from admission to three months postoperatively. Collected data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 25.). Various descriptive statistics such as mean, proportions, and cross tabulations were computed to describe study variables and answer study objectives. Results: During the study period, a total of 115 elective spine surgeries were done for degenerative spine disease out of which 107 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. From these, 81.3% were males and 18.7% were females and among those operated for lumbar pathologies 96.6% were satisfied and 83% of those operated for cervical pathologies were satisfied while all of the patients with TSS were unsatisfied. Among the participants 95(88.8%) of them reported satisfaction at the end of three months after the surgery and 12(11.2%) reported dissatisfaction (fig. 1). Most of them 94(87.9%) achieved the minimum clinical important difference for ODI/NDI and 13 of them didn't achieve MCID for ODI/NDI. Conclusion and recommendation: Among the study participants, majority of them (88.8%) were found to be satisfied by our intervention. The majority of them were younger and they have lower baseline ODI/NDI scores compared to literatures and the neurosurgery unit should make extra efforts to maintain and improve the relatively higher satisfaction rate.