Overall satisfaction on drainless outpatient parotidectomy
A total of 23/26 (88.5%) participants did not prefer a drain after
parotidectomy and 25/26 (96.2%) of participants would recommend day
case parotid surgery to other patients. (Table 2). 87.8% participants
(24/28) scored above 9 on a scale of 0-10 for overall satisfaction with
day case parotid surgery (Figure 1).
Strikingly, 16/28 (57.1%) participants either stayed or preferred to
stay overnight in the hospital after their surgery. Out of the 16
patients, 8 (61.5%) participants ended up staying in the hospital for
less than 23 hours due to various medical and social reasons despite not
having a surgical drain. The remaining eight patients expressed their
interest in overnight hospital stay when completing the questionnaire.
(Table 2)
A total of 3/28 (10.7%) participants felt they were discharged
prematurely and either the patient or their partner was anxious about
the same day discharge. Majority of participants reported no concerns
about pain, bleeding, nausea and vomiting but 8/28 (28.6%) participants
were anxious about post-surgical wound care. More than half of the
participants 16/28 (57.1%) had issues such as discomfort, itch and pain
with their balaclava bandage (Table 2). The majority of participants
(27/28, 96.4%) felt their pain was under control during discharge and
19/28 (67.9%) patients reported a pain score of less than 3 on a pain
scale of 0-10 (Figure 2).