SynthesisBMC public health2020
Are patients willing to accept longer travel times to decrease their risk associated with surgical procedures? A systematic review.
Synthesis in BMC public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 63 citations in OpenAlex.
- Development of a core outcome set for studies on centralization of healthcare services.BMC health services research · 2026Pooled it
- Evaluating tuberculosis service accessibility in Pakistan by analyzing population movement patterns from telecom mobility and survey data.BMC global and public health · 2026Article
- Gravity Modeling to Predict Patient Choice of Hospital for Pancreaticoduodenectomy.Annals of surgical oncology · 2026Article
- Geographical disparities for liver transplantation access in Mexico.World journal of transplantation · 2025Article
- Parental preferences for pediatric surgical facility centralization: insights from a discrete choice experiment.Pediatric surgery international · 2025Article
- Resistance to Switching Health Care Institution Among Veterans Referred for VA-Purchased Care.Journal of general internal medicine · 2025Article
- Factors affecting general practitioners' referrals of patients to hip and knee arthroplasty: a focus group study from Northern Norway.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Retrospective cohort study of trends in the use of outpatient parathyroidectomy by surgical indication.Surgery · 2025Article
- Impact of a minimally invasive approach for colon cancer surgery on outcomes in patients with functional limitations.Colorectal cancer · 2025Article
- Reallocation of chemotherapy appointments in a large health system using a mixed integer linear programming approach.Health systems (Basingstoke, England) · 2025Article
- Article
- Evidence-based cancer care: assessing guideline adherence of multidisciplinary tumor board recommendations for breast and colorectal cancer in a non-academic medical center.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2024Article
- Choreographed expansion of services results in decreased patient burden without compromise of outcomes: An assessment of the Ontario experience.Neuro-oncology practice · 2024Article
- Comparison of cataract surgery outcomes between a secondary and a tertiary eye hospital in Tamil Nadu, India.Eye (London, England) · 2024Article
- Healthcare service use in paediatric inflammatory bowel disease: a questionnaire on patient and parent care experiences in Germany.BMC gastroenterology · 2023Article
- National Economic Conditions May Impact the Financial Barriers to Travel for Cancer Operations.Annals of surgery open : perspectives of surgical history, education, and clinical approaches · 2023Article
- Methods to Summarize Discrete-Choice Experiments in a Systematic Review: A Scoping Review.The patient · 2022Article
- Rural-Urban Disparities in Realized Spatial Access to General Practitioners, Orthopedic Surgeons, and Physiotherapists among People with Osteoarthritis in Alberta, Canada.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Patient Utilization of Online Information and its Influence on Orthopedic Surgeon Selection: Cross-sectional Survey of Patient Beliefs and Behaviors.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- Stage II/III Rectal Cancer Post-Treatment Surveillance Patterns of Care: A SEER- Medicare Study.Advanced research in gastroenterology & hepatology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDistance to a hospital is an influencing factor for patients´ decision making when choosing a hospital for surgery. It is unclear whether patients prefer to travel further to regional instead of local hospitals if the risk associated with elective surgery is lower in the farther hospital. The aim of our systematic review was to investigate patient preferences for the location of care, taking into consideration surgical outcomes and hospital distance.
methodsMEDLINE (PubMed), EconLit, PsycInfo and EMBASE were searched until November 2019. We included experimental choice studies in which participants were asked to make a hypothetical decision where to go for elective surgery when surgical risk and/or distance to the hospitals vary. There was no restriction on the type of intervention or study. Reviewers independently extracted data using a standardized form. The number and proportion of participants willing to accept additional risk to obtain surgery in the local hospital was recorded. We also extracted factors associated with the decision.
resultsFive studies exploring participants´ preferences for local care were included. In all studies, there were participants who, independently of a decreased mortality risk or a higher survival benefit in the regional hospital, adhered to the local hospital. The majority of the patients were willing to travel longer to lower their surgical risk. Older age and fewer years of formal education were associated with a higher risk tolerance in the local hospital.
conclusionsWhether patients were willing to travel for a lower surgery-associated risk could not be answered in a straightforward manner. The studies we identified showed that decision making also relies on factors other than on rational information on risk or distance to hospital.
trial registrationInternational prospective register of ongoing systematic reviews (PROSPERO): CRD42016033655. Registered 1 January 2016.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.