Preoperative Home Care Can Be One of the Factors Affecting the Length of Hospital Stay in Patients Undergoing Total Hip Arthroplasty.

Abstract

To assess the importance of home nursing care on the functional outcome, quality of life, and length of stay of patients who underwent total hip arthroplasty. This was a retrospective cross-sectional study including patients who underwent surgery from February 2011 to December 2016. Patients were analyzed in two groups: with home care (received nursing care) and without home care. The analyzed outcomes were quality of life, functional outcome, and length of hospital stay. Total follow-up with questionnaires was 24 months. A total of 244 patients (143 with home care and 101 without home care) were analyzed. No significant differences were found regarding the mean age (<i>p</i> = 0.125), gender distribution (<i>p</i> = 0.449) and BMI (<i>p</i> = 0.548) between the two groups. There was also no significant difference regarding functional outcome (<i>p</i> = 0.107) and quality of life (<i>p</i> = 0.848), measured by validated tools. However, the median of length of hospital stays in the home care group was lower in 1 day compared to without home care group (<i>p</i> < 0.001). The home nursing care did not influence the functional outcome or quality of life of the patients, but there was a decrease in the length of hospital stay in the group that received preoperative nursing care.