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).