Influences on Anaesthetic Choice in Cataract Surgery 1.0

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Influences on Anaesthetic Choice in Cataract Surgery; A questionnaire study into the factors influencing patient refusal on local anaesthetic for non-medical reasons.

  • IRAS ID

    133082

  • Contact name

    Michael Clarke

  • Contact email

    michael.clarke@nuth.nhs.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    Newcastle University & The Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  • Research summary

    Background:
    Over the past 20 years in the UK cataract surgery has gone from the majority of operations being facilitated by general anaesthesia, to 95.5% of operations being done under local anaesthetic around 2005. This change has partly been driven by suggestions of lower morbidity rates from local anaesthesia cataract surgery but mainly by the lower reseource requirement of local anaesthetic. This has contributed to a trebling in the number of cataract operations performed annually in the UK over the past 20 years. A recent service appraisal of the cataract service the rough 2011 in a tertiary centre in Newcastle revealed that most patients having their surgery under general anaesthesia did not have any clinical contraindications to local anaesthesia.

    Aim:
    - To explore the ideas concerns and expectations of a group of patients who opted for general anaesthesia rather than local for non-clinical reasons.
    - To establish whether the majority of local anaesthesia in cataract surgery could be further increased with patient concordance.
    - To identify the key elements of a cataract service that guide patients in their anaesthetic choice.

    Methods:
    An information leaflet explaining the study and a questionnaire covering issues around anaesthetic choice will be delivered to the 29 patients who had no clinical contraindication for their general anaesthesia cataract surgery in 2011. There will also be a request for consent to a telephone interview covering the points raised by the questionnaire. The answers to these questions will be analysed, looking for patterns in the patients’ perceptions of anaesthetic approaches in cataract surgery.

  • REC name

    North West - Haydock Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    14/NW/0025

  • Date of REC Opinion

    14 Jan 2014

  • REC opinion

    Favourable Opinion