Information provided to patients modifies their expectations with surgery. The effects of preoperative audiovisual information on expectations with total knee replacement (TKR) have not been investigated. The purposes of this study were to investigate the effectiveness of an educational videodisc on the modification of pre-operative patients' expectations with TKR and to find a biophysical profile of subjects in whom this videodisc could be most effective. It was hypothesized that patients receiving standard information plus additional medical information through audiovisual videodiscs would modify their pre-operative expectations more than those only receiving the standard information through medical interviews.