Co-designing health-literate hand surgery care: qualitative priorities for patient education and patient-reported outcome feedback
- 1Newcastle Hand Institute
Abstract
ObjectiveTo identify patient, clinician, therapist and service priorities for a health-literacy intervention combining patient education with patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) feedback in routine hand surgery and hand therapy.
MethodsA qualitative co-design study was undertaken across public and private hand-care contexts in New South Wales, Australia. Twelve stakeholders participated: five consumers, three hand surgeons, one hand therapist and three administrative/managerial staff. Individual interviews plus a clinician group discussion were conducted. Data were collected in March 2026, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and de-identified. General inductive thematic analysis was undertaken in NVivo by one researcher, with final themes reviewed by co-investigators.
ResultsFour themes guided intervention design: (1) providing information is not enough, it must be understood, retained and reinforced; (2) patients need a practical roadmap of diagnosis, treatment, recovery and rehabilitation; (3) education should be multimodal, reusable and adaptable to individual needs; and (4) PROMs should improve the clinical conversation rather than become another burden. Participants supported brief, accessible PROMs and visual feedback over time, but views differed on comparison with other patients because benchmarking could either reassure or create anxiety and unrealistic expectations.
ConclusionHealth-literate hand care requires more than readable leaflets. It requires repeated, practical and adaptable communication across the care pathway, with PROM feedback embedded in patient-clinician conversations.
Practice implicationsHand services should pair standardized core education with flexible delivery and use brief PROMs as conversation tools. Longitudinal displays may support monitoring and shared decisions, while group comparisons should be optional and carefully explained.
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BibTeX
@misc{gholamrezaei2026codesigning,
title = {{Co-designing health-literate hand surgery care: qualitative priorities for patient education and patient-reported outcome feedback}},
author = {A. Gholamrezaei and D. Sandoz and T. Burgess and B. McClelland},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.25.26361179},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.25.26361179v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Co-designing health-literate hand surgery care: qualitative priorities for patient education and patient-reported outcome feedback
AU - A. Gholamrezaei
AU - D. Sandoz
AU - T. Burgess
AU - B. McClelland
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/25
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.25.26361179
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.25.26361179v1
AB - ObjectiveTo identify patient, clinician, therapist and service priorities for a health-literacy intervention combining patient education with patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) feedback in routine hand surgery and hand therapy. MethodsA qualitative co-design study was undertaken across public and private hand-care contexts in New South Wales, Australia. Twelve stakeholders participated: five consumers, three hand surgeons, one hand therapist and three administrative/managerial staff. Individual interviews plus a clinician group discussion were conducted. Data were collected in March 2026, audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and de-identified. General inductive thematic analysis was undertaken in NVivo by one researcher, with final themes reviewed by co-investigators. ResultsFour themes guided intervention design: (1) providing information is not enough, it must be understood, retained and reinforced; (2) patients need a practical roadmap of diagnosis, treatment, recovery and rehabilitation; (3) education should be multimodal, reusable and adaptable to individual needs; and (4) PROMs should improve the clinical conversation rather than become another burden. Participants supported brief, accessible PROMs and visual feedback over time, but views differed on comparison with other patients because benchmarking could either reassure or create anxiety and unrealistic expectations. ConclusionHealth-literate hand care requires more than readable leaflets. It requires repeated, practical and adaptable communication across the care pathway, with PROM feedback embedded in patient-clinician conversations. Practice implicationsHand services should pair standardized core education with flexible delivery and use brief PROMs as conversation tools. Longitudinal displays may support monitoring and shared decisions, while group comparisons should be optional and carefully explained.
ER -