Quality-of-Life Outcomes After Surgical Intervention for Otitis Media

Abstract

The disease-specific quality of life of children with recurrent acute otitis media and/or chronic otitis media with effusion with appropriate surgical indications significantly improved after surgical intervention. The amount of parental worry concerning their children's ear problems also significantly improved following surgery, and most caregivers would opt again for tube placement.

Health-related quality of life in children with otitis media

“…The manual search and expert discussion yielded one extra article [28]. After applying the criteria for inclusion and exclusion, only 13 articles remained for inclusion [29,30,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. In addition, we included results regarding reliability and validity of the TAIQOL from our own work published in a thesis [45].…”

“…The definitions of chronic and recurrent OM regarding number of OM episodes and duration, however, varied considerably. Chronic OME was defined as middle ear effusion in one or both ears for 6 weeks [36] to 6 months [41], rAOM as three or more episodes in previous 6 months [36,38,43] or more than three [29,45] to five [42] episodes within last year. Age of the patients ranged from 0 to 13 years of age.…”

Effect of Pneumococcal Vaccination on Quality of Life in Children With Recurrent Acute Otitis Media: A Randomized, Controlled Trial

“…In particular, several studies have been published investigating the effect of tympanostomy tube placement on their FHS, with some showing a positive effect 5,45,48,49 and others not. 50 Trials on tympanostomy tube placement, however, are hampered by the inability to blind caregivers and children for treatment, which means that treatment effects may be at least in part biased by their expectations.…”

A systematic review of patient-reported outcome measures in paediatric otolaryngology

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The Otitis Media Outcome-22 ('OMO-22') questionnaire was another prominent tool. 10,12 These tools were principally discriminated by their number of questions, providing a trade-off between response rate and sensitivity to change (lower in longer tools), versus the collection of what may be important information (easier in longer tools). A specific chronic suppurative otitis media tool was also identified, the Chronic Otitis Media-5 ('COM-5') survey.…”

“…This is emphasised in the otolaryngology literature from the extensive number of tools used for certain conditions; for example, otitis media. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] When assessing a patient-reported outcome measure, it is crucial to review the six key areas of: validity, test-retest reliability, precision, responsiveness, acceptance and response rate, and feasibility. [1][2][3] Regarding validity, one should consider whether the patient-reported outcome measure assesses what it is supposed to.…”