Do surgical expectations change depending on first time surgery or reoperation? A prospective cohort study in lumbar spine surgery

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. Purpose: To assess whether patients undergoing lumbar spine surgery for the first time (Group 1) had different expectations from those undergoing lumbar spine surgery for a failed previous procedure (Group 2). Methods: A prospective study that included 77 patients. A set of self-reported questionnaires was pre-operatively administered including VAS, Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), Zung Depression Scale and the NASS lumbar spine questionnaire (expectations scale). Results: Fifty-six patients in Group 1 and 21 patients in Group 2. Both groups had high expectations with regard to the surgical procedure (n.s.). Depressed patients, despite being more disabled than non-depressed according to ODI (p 0.001), had similar expectations than non-depressed patients (n.s.). Conclusion: Patients’ expectations remained very high despite having had a failed previous surgery for the same procedure.