Blough C, Najdawi J, Kuschner S. Patient preference for trigger finger treatment. World J Orthop 2022; 13(11): 1006-1014 [PMID: 36439373 DOI: 10.5312/wjo.v13.i11.1006]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Christian Blough, BSc, MD, Surgeon, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 444 S. San Vincente Blvd Suite 603, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States. christian.blough@cshs.org
Research Domain of This Article
Orthopedics
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Orthop. Nov 18, 2022; 13(11): 1006-1014 Published online Nov 18, 2022. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v13.i11.1006
Patient preference for trigger finger treatment
Christian Blough, Jawad Najdawi, Stuart Kuschner
Christian Blough, Jawad Najdawi, Stuart Kuschner, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States
Author contributions: Blough C and Kuschner S designed the research study; Blough C and Najdawi J performed the research study and analyzed the data; Blough C and Kuschner S prepared the manuscript; all authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was exempt from IRB review as described in 45 CFR part 46. Participants were made aware of the voluntary nature of this survey and the data was collected in a way that the subjects’ identity could not be ascertained by the researches.
Informed consent statement: An online, survey based, descriptive study was performed through the use of a crowdsourcing website, Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT). Participants for this study were randomly recruited through AMT.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Christian Blough, BSc, MD, Surgeon, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 444 S. San Vincente Blvd Suite 603, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States. christian.blough@cshs.org
Received: July 11, 2022 Peer-review started: July 11, 2022 First decision: September 26, 2022 Revised: September 28, 2022 Accepted: October 27, 2022 Article in press: October 27, 2022 Published online: November 18, 2022 Processing time: 127 Days and 16.8 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Trigger finger is a common disorder of the hand that can cause disabling symptoms. Treatment options range from conservative management with observation and splinting, to surgical release, but there is currently not a consensus on a treatment algorithm.
AIM
To determine patient preference for the treatment of trigger finger using an online survey.
METHODS
An online crowdsourcing platform, Amazon Mechanical Turk, was used to recruit participants for this study. Participants were led through a scenario in which they were diagnosed with trigger finger. They were then asked to rank their preference of treatment options from the following: Observation, splinting, corticosteroid injection, surgery. The results of the surveys were then analyzed using R software.
RESULTS
Of 323 participants completed the survey. 7 participants were excluded because they failed to correctly answer the attention question, leaving 316 participants whose results were included. As a first choice for treatment 117 (37%) of the included participants chose observation, 86 (27%) chose splinting, 61 (19%) chose corticosteroid injection, and 52 (16%) chose surgery. The mean rank for observation was 2.26, for splinting was 2.30, for corticosteroid injection was 2.53, and for surgery was 2.91. The ranking of each treatment option was statistically different (P value < 0.05) from the others except for observation and splinting.
CONCLUSION
The practice of shared decision making with patients is imperative to providing the best care possible. The results from this study, especially the preference for less invasive treatment, may help providers better frame discussion around treatment options of trigger fingers. This in turn, may increase patient satisfaction in the treatment of trigger finger.
Core Tip: Given the lack of current consensus on ideal management of trigger fingers, it is imperative for providers to pursue shared decision making with their patients. The results from this study may help providers better frame discussion around treatment options of trigger fingers. This, in turn, should lead to increased patient satisfaction.
