This prospective cohort study of 153 patients aimed to determine the economic and health costs of waiting for total hip arthroplasty (THA). Health-related quality of life, using self-completed WOMAC and EQ-5D questionnaires, was assessed monthly from enrolment preoperatively to 6 months postsurgery. Monthly cost diaries were used to record costs. The mean waiting time was 5.1 months and mean total cost of waiting for surgery was NZ 4305 dollars(US 2876 dollars) per person (pp) (NZ 1 dollar = US 0.668 dollar). Waiting more than 6 months was associated with a higher total mean cost (NZ 4278 dollars/US 2858 dollars pp) than waiting less than 6 months (NZ 2828 dollars/US 1889 dollars pp; P < .01). Improvements from preoperative to postoperative WOMAC and EQ-5D scores were identified (P < or = .01). Waiting longer led to poorer physical function preoperatively (P < or = .01). Those with poor initial health status showed greater improvement in WOMAC (P = .0001) and EQ-5D (P = .003) measures by 6 months after surgery. Longer waits for total hip arthroplasty incur greater economic costs and deterioration in physical function while waiting.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 8. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 February 2015.
All research outputs
#4,945,941
of 28,832,041 outputs
Outputs from The Journal of Arthroplasty
#1,028
of 5,310 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#20,256
of 177,519 outputs
Outputs of similar age from The Journal of Arthroplasty
#2
of 12 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,832,041 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 81st percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,310 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 177,519 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.
