More Realistic Spine Patients: Assessing the Effect of Dialogue Support Tool.
This multicenter randomized controlled trial will evaluate whether an additional preoperative study visit using the Dialogue Support (DS) tool improves patient information, expectations, and outcomes among adults scheduled for lumbar spine surgery for degenerative spinal disorders. The DS tool predicts outcomes one year after surgery based on patient characteristics and presents these estimates numerically and visually. Participants will be randomized to either one additional study visit in which DS results are presented and explained, or a control study visit during which DS will not be employed The study will assess whether the additional DS study visit influences postoperative outcomes, preoperative expectations, surgery cancellations, and cost-effectiveness. In addition, the project will externally validate the DS tool using data from the Norwegian Registry for Spine Surgery (NORspine) and assess the inter-rater reliability of DS assessments across spine surgeons.
Disc herniation [+2]
Patients who do not understand spoken or written Norwegian will be excluded, as... [+2]