Meeting Patient Expectations or Achieving a Minimum Clinically Important Difference: Predictors of Satisfaction among Lumbar Fusion Patients

Study Design Retrospective cohort. Purpose To investigate the impact of meeting a patient’s preoperative expectations for back or leg pain or the achievement of minimum clinically important difference (MCID) on patient satisfaction following lumbar fusion. Overview of Literature Few studies have compared if MCID achievement or meeting preoperative expectations for pain reduction affects patient satisfaction. Methods A surgical database was reviewed for eligible patients who underwent lumbar fusion. Patient satisfaction and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for back and leg pain were the outcomes of interest. Meeting expectations was calculated as a difference of ≤0 between preoperative expectations and postoperative VAS scores. MCID achievement was calculated by comparing changes in VAS scores with established values. Meeting preoperative expectations or MCID achievement as predictors of patient satisfaction was evaluated using regression analysis. Results A total of 134 patients were included in this study. Patients demonstrated significant improvements in VAS back and VAS leg (p