CORR Insights®: What is the Impact of Social Deprivation on Physical and Mental Health in Orthopaedic Patients?

摘要

In the current study, Wright and colleagues [12] performed a cross-sectional evaluation for nearly 5 months in an orthopaedic center, matching Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) scores to the Area Deprivation Index (ADI). The ADI is “a composite measure of community-level social deprivation” [12] and it was used to estimate individual social deprivation. The authors found that patients living in zip codes with the highest levels of social deprivation had worse PROMIS scores compared with patients living in the least-deprived quartile. The authors also determined that subspecialties were distinct in terms of the ADI of patients seen—39% of trauma patients were from the most-deprived quartile whereas only 11% of patients in a sports medicine practice were from the most-deprived quartile [12]. Although the results from the current study are consistent with those of another study on social deprivation and patient-reported outcomes [10], they remain an important addition to our growing knowledge about the effect of social deprivation on health care by focusing on the orthopaedic implications, as opposed to general health outcomes. It is also meaningful to orthopaedic surgeons, because it shows variability between specialties, which is a novel discovery.