Patient engagement in perioperative settings: A mixed method systematic review.

Only English peer-reviewed studies were included, and grey literature was not searched, so the findings may not transfer to other languages or services. The review covered only adult surgery under general anaesthesia and excluded minor surgeries, so it may not apply to day-case or non-general-anaesthesia procedures. Most included studies did not define patient engagement, so the review synthesises inconsistent concepts rather than a tested intervention. No subgroup analyses were performed, and many studies did not report demographic influences, so it cannot say which patient groups need which approach. Patient capacity to communicate was drawn from subjective data rather than validated measures.

One author was supported by an NHMRC Translating Research into Practice fellowship. The authors declared they are conducting a research project on surgical patient engagement and this review is stage one; no other conflict of interest was declared.

Do not read the four themes as evidence that a patient engagement programme improves surgical recovery. This review mapped how engagement was defined and studied; most studies did not define it, and it did not test whether these themes changed outcomes.