Patients’ subjective assessment of the duration of cataract surgery: a case series

Objectives: Surgery duration is a source of preoperative anxiety for patients undergoing cataract surgery. To better inform patients, we evaluated the agreement between objective and patient-perceived surgery durations. Design: Case series. Setting: Public teaching university hospital (Paris, France). Participants: During the study period, 368 cataract surgery cases performed on 285 patients were included, 85 cases were excluded from the final analysis. All patients who had uneventful phacoemulsification were included. Cases with any significant intraoperative adverse event or cases requiring additional anaesthesia other than topical were excluded. Resident performed cases were also excluded. Primary and secondary outcomes: Procedures were timed (objective duration) and patients were asked, immediately afterwards, to assess the duration of their surgery (patient-assessed duration). The agreement between objective and patient-assessed durations as well as influencing factors was studied....