Pediatric Day-of-Surgery Cancellations and the Association With Neighborhood Opportunity and Indices of Vulnerability : Phase II

We plan to prospectively study vulnerability factors that contribute to day of surgery cancellations (DOSC) by conducting a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with families cancelled the day of surgery. We plan to enroll between 20-30 families using convenience sampling. Based on preliminary data, we anticipate that most families will come from minority racial and ethnic groups and parents of non-English primary language (NEPL) - these interviews will be conducted via an interpreter. Interviews will be structured to explore surgical care utilization themes based on the Gelberg-Anderson Behavioral Model for Vulnerable Populations including 1) Parental knowledge and attitudes regarding surgical services, 2) family and community resources, 3) Perceived surgical conditions and perceived need for surgical services, and 4) use of surgical services and difficulties accessing them. Family recruitment will be ongoing and will continue until we have reached saturation of themes. The data generated from this study will lay the foundation for a multi-layered intervention at the hospital level to allow patients to be triaged according to COI 2.0, race/ethnicity, NEPL status, and other vulnerabilities. This will enable adaptation of hospital pre-operative procedures (i.e. NPO preoperative calls) to reduce DOSC.