Background and Objectives: For some years, psychiatric illness has been a major factor in evaluating the results of total knee arthroplasty. As with other patient-related items, patients diagnosed with mental illness have higher costs of medical treatment, longer recovery, and longer hospital stays. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the role of mental diseases on the surgical outcome compared with the normal population. Materials and Methods: At our hospital, we undertook a retrospective study between June 2020 and January 2022. The experimental group consisted of patients with mental diseases including schizophrenia, bipolar disease, depression, substance uses, or other psychiatric disorders. The control group consisted of patients who underwent total knee arthroplasty and did not have a mental disease. Postoperative complications and length of stay were also recorded during the study. We used the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) and the Knee Society Score (KSS) as outcome measures. Results: Between June 2020 and January 2022, a total of 634 patients underwent total knee arthroplasty in our clinic, of which 239 had a mental disease. The majority of patients were female (61%), and the average length of stay was significantly longer for patients with mental illness (6.8 vs. 2.8 days). Preoperative WOMAC and KS function scores demonstrated statistically significant differences between groups (67.83 ± 17.8 vs. 62.75 ± 15.7 and 29.31 ± 19.8 vs. 34.98 ± 21.3). KS knee score did not show any significant differences preoperatively. All postoperative functional scores showed significantly better results for the control group compared to the mental illness group. Conclusions: Mental illness appears to be linked with lower TKA scores before and after the surgical procedure.
Keywords: TKA; osteoarthritis; psychiatry.