Quality of life measures in otitis media

Abstract

Disabling hearing impairment is the world's most common disability. Traditionally, hearing levels measured by pure tone audiometry have been used to define and quantify hearing loss. The effects of disabling hearing loss on patients' quality of life can be profound, and audiometric data alone may not correlate with quality of life measures. Generic measures of quality of life can be used to compare different diseases, and as such are useful in resource allocation and burden of disease studies. Their disadvantage is that they are not disease-specific and can therefore under-estimate the effects of a disease on patients' quality of life. Disease-specific measures are more sensitive. In chronic otitis media, additional factors such as discharge augment the effect of hearing loss alone on quality of life. Many of the quality of life measures developed for chronic otitis media have been used to assess improvement following reconstructive surgery. Quality of life measures have also been used to assess the effect of paediatric otitis media. Quality of life measures also have utility in the developing world, where hearing impairment is a huge burden.

Quality of life of Nepali patients with ear disease before and after corrective surgery

“…Therefore, it is important to have effective measures of quality of life (QoL) and health status to evaluate the burden of disease and effectiveness of treatments. A number of effective instruments exist for use in high‐income countries, which are reviewed here . However, the availability of effective instruments for use in low‐income countries is limited .…”

“…A number of effective instruments exist for use in high‐income countries, which are reviewed here . However, the availability of effective instruments for use in low‐income countries is limited . The use of instruments developed in high‐income countries is difficult as they are often not available in multiple languages, and the items are not always applicable to low‐income nations.…”

Targets and outcomes

“…7 The principle instrument used was the Glasgow Benefit Inventory. 8 Interestingly, they found that mastoid surgery for chronic otitis media in most patients did not produce an increase in QoL. This finding differs from a study in a low-income country, which showed significant improvement in QoL in patients who underwent middle-ear surgery.…”

The evaluation of canal wall up cholesteatoma surgery with the Glasgow Benefit Inventory

“…Therefore, these data are useful as a complement to the previously reported hearing data and surgical outcome. The GBI is a non-disease-specific tool for the measurement of HRQoL in contrast to, for example, the CES, but to its advantage, it is possible to make comparisons between different interventions [23].…”