A Quality Improvement Initiative: A Patient Education Video for Enhancing Postoperative Pain Management

Background/Purpose: The current opioid epidemic remains as one of the most severe public health crises in history. The perioperative setting is often where an initial exposure to opioids occurs, not only as a key component of an anesthetic, but in the form of prescriptions for the management of postoperative pain. A prior DNP project was developed to minimize patient exposure to opioids during select sinus surgery procedures with the use of an opioid sparing anesthesia outline. The results of the initial project identified that key modifications were needed to not only improve the outline itself, but also highlighted a knowledge gap in patient education regarding opioid use and postoperative pain management. With the goal to address this knowledge gap, the purpose of this DNP project was to 1) amend and update the opioid sparing anesthesia outline; 2) evaluate adherence to the outline by anesthesia providers; 3) retrospectively assess the outcomes of patients who received an opioid sparing anesthetic; and 4) develop a preoperative patient education video and evaluate its impact on patient knowledge and understanding of safe opioid use and postoperative pain management.

Methods: A preoperative patient education video was developed by the multidisciplinary team. The video was scripted, formatted, and recorded by the project team in a role-play setting between patient and provider. The comprehensive application to the IRB was submitted in the summer of 2022, but due to newly mandated IRB processes in obtaining consent, it prevented carrying out the project as planned. Therefore, a new methodology was developed and included the physician member of the project team providing the patient education video in her office and via a QR code emailed to applicable patients who were scheduled for surgery. Patients were asked to complete a questionnaire specific to the video during their two-week postoperative visit. The questionnaire is formatted to determine the efficacy of the video in enhancing patient knowledge about safe postoperative pain management techniques. Comparisons of patient knowledge before and after viewing the video will be assessed.

Results: The patient education video was provided to patients in the physician’s office when scheduled for specific sinus surgery procedures from March 2023 until July 2023. The anticipated sample size (n=20-25) for patient evaluation of the video will be based upon the surgeon scheduling sinus surgeries during this same time frame.

Discussion/Conclusion: This study aims to investigate the efficacy of a patient education video on the understanding of postoperative pain management, opioid use, and the safe storage and disposal of opioids, with the purpose to allow patients to become stakeholders in their health and make more informed decisions about their postoperative pain management.