Abstract
Chronic rhinosinusitis is an inflammatory process involving the sinonasal mucosa, lasting 12 weeks or longer. It is often characterized by a complex of debilitating symptoms usually classified into minor and major symptoms. Estimating symptom/ disease severity using structured questionnaires can be challenging. This is especially so in rural areas where a combination of low literacy levels and language barrier may present communication difficulties. In view of the aforementioned challenges, it has become imperative to explore the correlation between the 22- item sino-nasal outcome test (SNOT-22) and a simpler means of evaluating symptom severity in chronic rhinosinusitis; hence this study. To determine the correlation between SNOT-22 and visual analogue scale (VAS) questionnaire scoring of symptom severity in chronic rhinosinusitis. This was a twelve month prospective cross sectional study of fifty- two consecutive newly diagnosed adult patients with chronic rhinosinusitis. Age of patients ranged from 19 – 91 years. Male to female ratio was 1: 1.26. There was a significant positive correlation between VAS and SNOT-22 in moderate and high symptom severity in patients with CRS. This study found a positive correlation between SNOT-22 and VAS scoring of disease severity in moderate and severe diseases and an insignificant correlation between these two instruments in mild disease. VAS can be used as a guide to symptom severity in the pre-treatment patients with CRS.
Highlights
Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is an inflammatory process involving the sinonasal mucosa. It is defined as the presence of two or more symptoms one of which should be either nasal blockage/obstruction/congestion or nasal discharge with or without facial pain, hyposmia for more than 12 weeks, together with pathologic endoscopic findings in the middle nasal meatus and or computerized tomography scan changes within the osteomeatal complex (OMC) and or sinuses [1]
In north-western Nigeria, Iseh et al [3] reported a prevalence of 7.3% of CRS in a population of children and adults, which is consistent with studies on CRS in otolaryngology practice from various regions in Nigeria with a similar population [4,5,6,7,8,9]
Not all the symptoms of CRS can be precisely described by patients; the need arises for a quantifiable, very simple and admissible instrument such as visual analogue scale (VAS); an instrument most commonly used for pain
Summary
Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is an inflammatory process involving the sinonasal mucosa It is defined as the presence of two or more symptoms one of which should be either nasal blockage/obstruction/congestion or nasal discharge (anterior or posterior) with or without facial pain (pressure), hyposmia for more than 12 weeks, together with pathologic endoscopic findings in the middle nasal meatus and or computerized tomography scan changes within the osteomeatal complex (OMC) and or sinuses [1]. It often results to reduced work and school attendance, sleep disturbance, sexual and olfactory dysfunction [10] These symptoms and signs of CRS which includes facial congestion or fullness, nasal obstruction or blockage, anterior rhinorhoea or post-nasal discharge, hyposmia, headache, fever, halitosis, International Journal of Otorhinolaryngology 2019; 5(1): 24-30 fatigue, dental pain, cough and ear pressure or pain lasting are often troubling and refractive [11, 12]
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