JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Hernia repair is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures worldwide with long-term outcomes less appraised, mainly due to high loss of follow up rate and poor patients’ compliance, which result in a biased estimate of recurrence, complication, and patients’ subjective quality-of-life perception.

Objective:

To overcome these limitations, we developed a novel mobile app to enhance the follow up and outcomes assessment of hernia patients.

Methods:

The mobile app was empowered by a cloud-based corroborative system. Hernia patients could administer a quality-of-life measuring instrument, HERQL, to assess outcomes of hernia repair. The HERQL questionnaire comprises a 4-item summative pain score measuring pain and discomfort resulted from various strenuous activities. Symptomatic burden, functional domains, and post-operative satisfaction and potential complications were evaluated.

Results:

During the one year’s enrollment period, 2615 patients who had their hernias repaired at our hospital were identified from medical records and an invitation was sent through post. Response rate was 11.9% (311 patients followed the instruction, successfully logged on and completed HERQL survey). There were 93 ventral/incisional hernias, 202 groin hernias, and 16 both. The earliest repair took place more than 13 years ago. Overall recurrence rate was 0.96% (n=3), and 88.7% (n=276) of participants rated their last hernia repair as satisfactory/very satisfactory. Around seventy percent of patients (n=213, 68.5%) reported no discomfort relevant to hernia repairs, and 61.1% (n=190) never experience mesh foreign body sensation.

Conclusions:

The establishment of the mobile app platform could enhance the quality of care for hernia patients and facilitate outcomes research for this common disease with a more comprehensive and complete follow up. The experiences learnt from this study could project to other surgical diseases as well.