The effect of care addiction levels on improvement in patients with total knee prosthesis

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTİVE: Patients who undergo total knee arthroplasty (TKA) become dependent on maintaining their daily life activities due to the problems that occur as a result of the surgical intervention. Therefore, this study was planned to determine the effect of care dependency levels on recovery in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The research was conducted with 100 patients who met the research criteria and underwent total knee replacement surgery between 01.02.2023 and 01.02.2024. Personal Information Form, Care Dependency Scale and Postoperative Recovery Index were applied to the patients in the postoperative period. RESULTS: While the average age of the participants is 63.90±7.87, 75.0% are women, 79.0% are married, 55.0% are primary school graduates and 49.0% are not working. While 50.0% of the participants had right TFP, 53.0% had a chronic disease, 43.0% had a history of surgery, 18.0% on the first day after surgery, 84% on the first mobilization. time is day 1 and the addiction level of 46.0% is dependent. While the care dependency scale score was 58.43±9.87, the postoperative recovery index score was 2.82±0.68. CONCLUSION: It is observed that patients who have undergone total knee arthroplasty experience more difficulties in both care dependency and postoperative recovery as age increases. Gender of the patients does not affect their postoperative recovery. Patients being single, being primary school graduates or illiterate, not working or retired, having a chronic disease, having had a previous surgical operation, having a short time since their surgery, and being mobilized early are more likely to experience difficulties in post-operative recovery and their level of commitment is dependent. Patients with this disease experience difficulties in recovery in the postoperative period. Accordingly, care dependency affects recovery in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty.