Brief Report: Do Patients With Poor Outcomes Regret Having Had Infrainguinal Bypass Surgery?

Background: Retrospection and hindsight bias may lead patients with bad outcomes to regret the choice of infrainguinal bypass surgery. Objective: To assess patients' retrospective evaluations of surgery stratified by common criteria to judge surgical success. Survey Design: Cross-sectional phone surveys of 33 patients, an average of 162 d following infrainguinal bypass surgery. Results: Of the 33 patients evaluated, 26 (79%) experienced undesirable outcomes, including amputation (4, 12%), prolonged hospitalization (8, 24%), wound infection (8, 24%), readmission to the hospital (12, 36%), additional surgery (11, 33%), and other complications (16, 48%). Of the patients surveyed, nearly all (30, 91%) reported that they would still want to have had the surgery if they had a 5-y 50% mortality, and the same proportion reported they would recommend the surgery to someone else with similar medical problems (30, 91%). Conclusions: If confirmed in larger populations, these findings suggest that when viewed retrospectively, results traditionally considered poor outcomes may not deter many patients' preferences for surgical management of their infrainguinal vascular disease.