Grommets and patient satisfaction: an audit

With the increasing role of evidence-based medicine we, as ENT surgeons, are being asked more and more to justify the practice of grommet insertion in children with glue ear. The audiological improvement which follows this operation is often only moderate at best. When judged solely in terms of hear...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England 1997-11, Vol.79 (6), p.428-431
Main Authors: Hellier, W P, Corbridge, R J, Watters, G, Freeland, A P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absenteeism
Adolescent
Adult
Child
Child, Preschool
England
Family Practice
Hearing
Humans
Infant
Medical Audit
Middle Ear Ventilation - psychology
Otitis Media with Effusion - surgery
Parents - psychology
Patient Satisfaction
Retrospective Studies
Treatment Outcome
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Summary:With the increasing role of evidence-based medicine we, as ENT surgeons, are being asked more and more to justify the practice of grommet insertion in children with glue ear. The audiological improvement which follows this operation is often only moderate at best. When judged solely in terms of hearing improvement, one may miss the often dramatic all-round improvement in a child which the parents frequently report to us postoperatively. We set out to confirm this clinical observation by using a retrospective questionnaire, seeking parental opinion after their children had undergone grommet insertion. We found a wide range of reported benefits as a result of grommet insertion; these include an improvement in hearing (92.1%), a reduced frequency of ear infections (74.1%), a reduction in postoperative GP visits (87%), less time missed from school (70.7%), as well as a variety of improvements in children's speech, education and general behaviour. Overall, we found that 96.7% of parents were satisfied that the decision to insert grommets in their child was correct. We feel that these non-audiological factors should be taken into account when judging the potential benefit to a child, or population of children, from grommet insertion.
ISSN:0035-8843
1478-7083