Mental health support for patients with prosthetic joint infection and their families

Deep prosthetic joint infection is a devastating condition that can cause pain, disability and death. It affects 1-4% of patients after joint replacement and has a major psychological impact on patients and their families.

12% of patients with prosthetic joint infection rate their health-related quality of life as worse than death and 58% report depression up to four years after surgery. Over time, patients’ expectations for improvement decreases and their depression and anxiety increase, but they receive no mental health support.

Project aims

Our aim is to design a hybrid digital intervention for patients with a prosthetic joint infection, to help prepare them for treatment and recovery, and reduce their psychological distress. We will design the intervention together with patients, to ensure it is accessible, meaningful, usable, and engaging for patients and their families.

What we hope to achieve

By the end of the project, we hope to have a hybrid digital intervention for patients with a prosthetic joint infection, ready to test in a future study. Our goal is to develop a way of providing much-needed psychological support for these patients within the constraints of NHS resources.