Pre-Operative Rehabilitation (Prehabilitation) in Elective Lower Limb Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgery (PREPARE KIDS)

Research summary

Preparing adults for surgery improves recovery and shortens hospital stays. We want to know if the same is true for children. Does preparing children for hip, leg and foot surgery help them recover faster, reduce their time in hospital, and save the NHS money? Why are we doing this research? 1. We asked over 400 children, parents/guardians and doctors. Preparing children for surgery was a top research priority, especially if it could speed up recovery. 2.Shorter hospital stays could reduce burden on NHS beds, helping waiting lists and costs. 3.Our pilot study showed that children who were prepared before surgery spent less time in hospital, missed less school and improved the patient journey. Now we want to test this in a larger study. How will the research be done? We will invite 524 children (aged 5-14) from at least 20 NHS hospitals (UK) who are having hip, leg or foot surgery. We will compare the PREPARE KIDS prehabilitation programme plus usual care with usual care alone. The PREPARE KIDS prehabilitation programme involves a pre-surgery hospital session including: -An exercise plan to practise before surgery. -Training to safely use mobility aids (e.g. crutches or a frame). -A discharge plan covering hospital stay, pain and movement management. All children will receive usual care as per local practice. Children will be randomly assigned to a study group. After surgery, we will record things such as hospital length of stay, healthcare use, pain levels, and mobility. We will follow each child at 2, 6 and 12 weeks after surgery, asking about recovery, daily activities, pain and movement. We will also calculate costs. Who helped design the project? Children, parents/guardians and clinicians shared what matters most to them. Our team includes physiotherapists, orthopaedic surgeons, patient and public representative, and researchers from universities in Oxford, Norwich, Cardiff, Liverpool & Coventry.

Principal Investigator

Mr Max Misfud

Contact us

Email: childrensresearch@ouh.nhs.uk

IRAS number

366508