Effect of a Pre-operative Internet-based Educational Video on Post Operative Opioid Consumption

One of the most challenging issues in modern medicine is the current opioid epidemic. Given the association between opioid use after surgery and the development of opioid addiction, an essential goal of the medical community should be to develop strategies aimed at instructing the safe use of opioids. In addition, instructions on how to use non-opioid painkillers and exercises and techniques to better cope with pain can be used to reduce the patients opioid requirements after surgery. This study aims to evaluate the effect of providing an online educational video presentation to patients prior to surgery. This will be a 30 minute video which will provide the study participants with instructions on how best to use their opioid and non-opioid medication for pain and also teach the study participants exercises and techniques to better cope with their pain. This intervention will be used with a view to reduce the amount of opioids used by patients following hip or knee replacement surgery. Participants will be followed during their immediate phase after surgery to determine how much pain killers the participants have used and at six weeks the participants will be asked to return their unused opioids to see how much the participants have used in total.