Assessment of the Quality Of Life and Patients’ Satisfaction in Egyptian Patients Wearing Facial Prostheses

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess patients’ satisfaction and Quality of Life withfacial prostheses through a special designed questionnaire.Material and Methods: 120 patients using facial prostheses retained either by chemicaladhesives or bone anchorage implant for at least 6 months were asked to answer a twenty questionsquestionnaire through a cross-sectional survey. This questionnaire covered the appearance,retention means and effectiveness, awareness, self-confidence, difficulty of placement and removal,cleaning, restriction of social actions, pain and inflammation of tissues, and advice of the methodto other patients. Visual analogue scale (VA S) was used to show patient response. The mean of theanswers was converted into a percentage to symbolize the satisfaction index.Results: Wearing facial prostheses made most of patients happy (mean (SD) 9.4 (1.54)). Themost satisfied patients was those who had facial prosthesis retained by implants (p = 0.025), andadditional self-awareness was experienced in those retained by adhesives (p = 0.012). 72% ofpatients experienced no pain or troubles with the prosthesis during function. Both implant andadhesive retained prostheses have noticeable advantages without the presence of statisticallyconsiderable differences between them.Conclusions: The results showed that use of extraoral prostheses retained by adhesive or bybone anchorage implant provided a high level of satisfaction among patients.