Introduction: Despite cystoscopy being among the most commonly performed urological procedures, there is a paucity of information on patient comprehension and retention of cystoscopy outcomes. A quality assessment performed at our center revealed low rates of patient understanding in our current care model. Therefore, we assessed patient comprehension of outpatient cystoscopy outcomes before and after the implementation of a formal written communication tool in the form of a summative patient handout to improve physician-patient communication.
Methods: Consecutive patients reporting for cystoscopy at a Canadian tertiary care center were assessed with postprocedure questionnaires before and after the implementation of a summative patient handout to facilitate the communication of results and followup plans. Comparisons were made with the Chi-squared test (p <0.05).
Results: A total of 650 questionnaires were analyzed (500 baseline and 150 postsummative patient handout). Of the respondents 448 (69%) were male and the mean age was 66 years old (total range 21 to 94 years) with 32% being under 60 years old. The proportion of patients who felt their results were discussed with them after implementation of the summative patient handout improved (94% vs 87%, p=0.02). Similarly, we improved concordance of patient reported and urologist reported cystoscopy results (75% vs 56%, p <0.001). Finally, we improved patient identification of their postcystoscopy followup plan (80% vs 51%, p <0.001).
Conclusions: The implementation of a summative patient handout after local cystoscopy improved patient understanding of their procedural results and postcystoscopy followup plans.
Keywords: communication; cystoscopy; quality improvement.