Comparison of Ambulatory Surgery and Inpatient Surgery for Children

Park, Kwan Hyun; Choi, Jin Ho; Oh, Sei Kwon; Jeon, Seong Soo; Lee, Kyu Sung; Lee, Sung Won; Choi, Han Yong; Chai, Soo Eung

Abstract

Ambulatory surgery is an established surgical system that all the procedures which are visiting hospital, undergoing surgery and recovery and returning home, performed on the same day. We evaluated our initial experiences to find out if there are any differences between ambulatory surgery and inpatient surgery especially during the perioperative period. We assessed the following 6 items: the degree of perioperative anxiety in parents, observation time in the recovery room, hospital charge, length of time to return to usual activities, postoperative complications and degree of postoperative satisfaction in parents. Between April 1995 and August 1996, we reviewed 30 patients who underwent ambulatory surgery (age: 1 mo-15.2 yrs, mean 5.8 yrs) - hydrocelectomy (16 cases), orchiopexy (10 cases), varicocelectomy (1 case), excision of cyst at urethral meatus (1 case) and circumcision (2 case). Then we compared the same parameters with those of 30 inpatient children who underwent similar surgical procedures (age: 7 mo-12 yrs, mean 3.8 yrs) - hydrocelectomy (15 cases) and orchiopexy (15 cases). The results were as follows: 1. There was no significant difference among the two groups in observation time at recovery room (p=0.381) and the time to return to normal activities (p=0.202).2. Ambulatory surgery group is more economical than the inpatient surgery group (p<0.05). 3. In ambulatory surgery group, the degree of perioperative anxiety in parents was higher than inpatient surgery group (p=0.001). However, postoperative satisfaction was higher than inpatient surgery group (p=0.001) with negligible complications, In conclusion, ambulatory surgery in pediatric urology was more advantageous than inpatient surgery with regards to postoperative satisfaction and alleviation of parental burden on time and money.