Patient Recovery and Satisfaction with Perioperative Care After Rhinoplasty

Overview

Recovery after rhinoplasty is not well described in the literature. The study set out to quantify key parts of that recovery and identify factors affecting it and overall satisfaction with care around the operation. It was a prospective cohort of patients operated on at a tertiary referral centre between January 2018 and January 2020, who completed a patient experience questionnaire at the first postoperative visit.

Sections of note

• Prospective cohort study; 51 patients had functional septorhinoplasty.
• Mean age was 37.8 years with standard error 2.4; median 36.0 years, range 16 to 79.
• Fifty three percent were female, 27 patients.
• Patients resumed most daily activities within 4.1 days.
• Overall satisfaction with care around the operation was high, mean 9.6 with standard error 0.1.
• Twenty nine percent of patients, 15 people, wished they had received more information about their surgical care.
• Patients who did not want additional information reported higher satisfaction and faster return to activity than those who did.

What it means for a patient

• Most routine activity resumed within about four days, which is faster than many patients expect.
• Nearly a third of patients felt underinformed, and those patients recovered more slowly and were less satisfied.
• The association runs both ways: feeling underinformed may slow recovery, or a harder recovery may make patients feel they were underinformed.
• Fifty one patients at one centre, surveyed at a single visit, is a small sample.

Why this paper matters

Recovery expectations are set during consultation, and the pace of return to normal activity is one of the most common patient questions. This study measures it directly and links satisfaction to how well informed patients felt. Whether providing more information improves either outcome was not tested.

Terms

• Perioperative care: the care given around the time of surgery, before and after.
• Functional septorhinoplasty: surgery combining nasal reshaping with correction of the septum for breathing.
• Prospective cohort: a group followed forward in time from enrollment.
• Standard error: a measure of how precisely an average has been estimated.
• Tertiary referral centre: a specialist hospital receiving complex referred cases.