Abstract
Purpose :
LASIK is considered the gold standard in refractive surgery with reported patient satisfaction rates of 95%-99%. RealSelf.com is a website that collects patient-written reviews for various surgical procedures, including LASIK. The goal of this retrospective study was to characterize patient reviews for LASIK on RealSelf and assess factors influencing patient satisfaction.
Methods :
Five hundred twenty-three reviews for LASIK on RealSelf.com posted 2007-2022 were extracted. A web scraper was used to collect available information from each review, including year of review, cost, and “worth it” rating. Patient ratings of various aspects of their experience, including doctor's bedside manner, answered my questions, after care follow-up, time spent with me, phone or email responsiveness, staff professionalism & courtesy, payment process, and wait times, were collected. Written reviews were categorized as positive or negative by CB and JM. Content of the review was further categorized into primary and secondary themes: adverse effect, bedside manner, comfort, cost, office environment, and refractive result.
Results :
Of 523 reviews, 348 (66.5%) were labelled “worth it”, 56 (10.7%) “not worth it”, and 42 (8.0%) “not sure”. The median cost was $3,500. Among the 464 written reviews, 356 (76.7%) were positive (Table 1). The most common primary reason for positive reviews was refractive result (N=272, 83.4%), followed by bedside manner (N=35, 9.8%) and office (N=28, 7.9%). In 108 negative reviews, the most common primary reason was refractive result (N=54, 50.0%), followed by adverse effect (N=31, 28.7%) and bedside manner (N=12, 11.1%). The least common reason for both positive and negative reviews was cost. 241/311 (77.5%) patients rated their LASIK surgery as 5/5. Table 2 outlines the distribution of ratings across various aspects of the surgical experience.
Conclusions :
Among patient-reported reviews on RealSelf, refractive result and patient experience (physician interactions and office environment) were most cited as main factors contributing to patient satisfaction. Cost was less commonly noted by patients as a reason for a positive or negative review. Studying factors contributing to patient postoperative satisfaction can inform ophthalmologists when seeking to understand patient perspectives of their care.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.