Health-related quality of life in rhino surgery

Background: Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQL) measures the impact of a pathologic condition on patient's daily life. Besides from disease-related symptoms, it includes a wide spectrum of daily life activities such as physical and social activities, emotional problems, general feeling, and so on. HRQL of patients with nasal diseases is known to correlate only moderately to conventional clinical markers. HRQL data about patients undergoing rhino surgery are not available to date. Objective: The purpose of this study was to study HRQL in patients undergoing nasal surgery and to measure therapeutic effects 3 months postoperatively. Methods: We used a specific health profile HRQL questionnaire with 25 items summarized in 6 symptom groups: sleep; nonnasal, nasal, and emotional symptoms; headache; and practical problems (symptom score 1 to 4). A visual analog scale (0 to 10) was given to measure the patient's general feeling related to their nasal disease. One hundred eighty-one patients undergoing nasal surgery for various reasons were included preoperatively. One hundred seven of them could be interviewed 3 months postoperatively to study therapeutic effects of our surgical intervention. Results: Patient's pre- and postoperative HRQL status could be determined, and differences in disease-related subgroups could be identified. Comparing pre- and postoperatively gained HRQL data revealed a significant improvement in symptom score of 23 of 25 items and according to the following in all symptom groups: sleep preoperatively 2.46 versus postoperatively 1.98 (P < .01), nonnasal symptoms preoperatively 2.13 versus postoperatively 1.91 (P < .01), headache preoperatively 2.17 versus postoperatively 1.72 (P < .01), practical problems preoperatively 2.47 versus postoperatively 2.06 (P < .01), nasal symptoms preoperatively 2.39 versus postoperatively 1.90 (P < .01), and emotional problems preoperatively 2.01 versus postoperatively 1.81 (P < .01). The general feeling score improved from preoperatively 6.47 to postoperatively 3.95 (P < .01) as well. Conclusions: We could measure patient's HRQL status pre- and postoperatively, could work out peculiarities of the studied subgroups, and showed therapeutic benefits of our surgical intervention.