Strength, limitations and comparison with other studies
Our study is the first to report patient satisfaction on drainless
outpatient parotidectomy in the United Kingdom. A validated
questionnaire was also used, improving the reliability of our results.
This study also allows us to understand the patients’ point of view on
drainless outpatient parotidectomy and provides guidance to service
providers to improve the current standard of care.
This is a single institution study and the results may be limited by the
small sample size. Selection bias when selecting patients for day case
procedure may also affect the results negatively. Although our results
show that 16/28 (57.1%) of patients preferred to stay overnight in the
hospital, the hospital stay of eight patients was justified for various
medical and social reasons. This may result in patients having biased
responses when responding to questions about their preference to stay
overnight. Therefore, patient satisfaction on same day hospital
discharge may have been underestimated in our cohort. Surgeon’s
perspective on drainless outpatient parotidectomy was also not explored,
nor was a cost analysis performed to compare the costs of drainless
outpatient parotidectomy to those of inpatient parotidectomy.
Furthermore, the uni-dimensional nature of the 5 point Likert scale and
social desirability factors may compromise the measurement of patient
satisfaction in our series.