My outcomes

I remain astounded by the articles that report that 20% or more of patients have groin pain following an inguinal hernia repair.  I felt sure that was not the case for patients that I operate on, otherwise I would have large numbers of patients contacting.  If all is well patients rarely contact me; , although I do ask for [feedback] [iwantgreat care my assumption.

I decided that I needed to actively follow up my recent patients with a survey.  I contacted a successive series of 130 patients that I had operated on with a brief list of questions.

“Since your hernia repair –

• Do you have pain in the groin or the in region of the hernia repair?
• Has the operation relieved your pre operation groin symptoms?
• Are you pleased that you had your hernia repaired?”

Sixty-five patients replied to the survey first time round.  The survey was re-sent from my personal email address to the remaining 65, and 45 replied.  Despite another attempt 20 patients remain uncontactable.

The results are shown in the pie charts below.  Only one patient had moderate discomfort 12 months after the operation.  This was a patient who had experienced a lot of pain before his operation, much of which has improved.