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The purpose of the study seemed reasonable but it’s not clear why they went to social media to gather results. As Dr. Towfigh implied, people who don’t have problems rarely talk about their surgeries on social media. Their “aim” really should have said “perspectives of patients around their hernia repair problems”.
“The aim of this study was to explore the perspectives of patients around their hernia and its management, to aid future planning of hernia services to maximise patient experience, and good outcomes for the patient.”
I’ve often thought that a good study for helping to define the hernia repair chronic pain problem would be to compare hernia surgery to other similar surgeries. Classify the surgery by type. For example, survey patients who have had laparoscopic surgery for gall bladder removal or appendectomy or prostate removal in addition to hernia repair. If all of the groups have similar chronic pain problems that might shed some light on something besides mesh. If the other groups have a very low level of problems but only lap mesh patients have the 10 – 15% chronic pain problem, that’s pretty good evidence that mesh might be involved.
It is good to see other groups exploring the problem though. Thanks for posting that article.