I’m having spinal surgery to fuse my lumbar spine at L45 next week. I went in for my pre-op with the nurse today. She told me I would be able to take a survey after the operation to decide if it was all worth it in the end. How can a survey figure that out?

Satisfaction surveys are well-known in the consumer industry. You try a product and fill out a questionnaire about what you liked, disliked, and whether or not you would buy that item.

As a commodity, quality-of-life is a little more difficult (but not impossible) to quantify and measure. For example, satisfaction surveys for orthopedic patients might include statements like:

  • I can do whatever activities I want now after surgery
  • I got as much pain relief as I had expected after surgery
  • If I had to do it all over again, I would have the surgery again
  • The good that I got from the surgery outweighed the setbacks that came with it

    You would rate each statement as definitely true, mostly true, don’t know, mostly false, or definitely false. Each one of those answers would be given a point value. When all added up, your answers would total a score that fell into a category such as most satisfied, satisfied, unsure, dissatisfied, or most dissatisfied.