Abstract
Objective: Assess a cohort of patients who underwent adenotonsillectomy for obstructive sleep apnea 4 years postsurgery for continued and long-term improvement in quality of life using the Child Health Questionnaire Physical Function version 28. We also sought to compare this group of children to a healthy United Kingdom population.
Method: A telephone survey was carried out using the CHQ-PF28 questionnaire and administered to the primary care giver of 37 patients who underwent adenotonsillectomy for obstructive sleep apnea 4 years after initial surgery at our university hospital tertiary referral center.
Results: A total of 33 patients (89.1%) from our initial cohort were contacted. The mean age was 10.6 years (median, 11 years range, 5-16 years). The mean scores from our follow-up study show improvements in 5 subscales and were statistically significant in 2 subscales (role limitations P < .00001; bodily pain P < .002) when compared to values obtained 3 months postoperatively. The 4-year follow-up scores showed further improvement in 5 subscales when compared with a healthy population. All subscales of the CHQ-PF28 improved in the long term when compared to scores preoperatively.
Conclusion: Quality of life data are an important measure when deciding on a particular intervention. In the short term quality of life measures have been shown to improve. Our study demonstrates that the benefits of surgery are still persistent, and the children continue to improve in the long term.
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