Background: Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media (CSOM) affects approximately 2% of the population, in South East Asia CSOM has a prevalence of approximately 5.2%   in  the   general populationHearing loss is the world’s most common disability, affecting more than 5% of the global population (360 million people), with over half of these patients resident in low– and middle–income nations. Therefore, it is important to have effective measures of quality of life (QoL) and health status to evaluate the burden of disease and effectiveness of treatments.

OBJECTIVE

To compare General quality of life in patients with CSOM before and after ear surgery using SF–36 questionnaire.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This prospective study was  conducted in the department  of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck, Srinagar.  All those patients who were treated at the Department and fulfilling the inclusion criteria were  included in the study.The measurement of general health–related QOL life was performed using two instruments (1) Short Form 36  (SF–36).Data  was collected   at three times of measurement (TM): pre–operatively (TM1), 6 months  (TM2), and 12 months after surgery (TM3) using  SF–36 questionnaire.Tympanoplasty,Canal wall–up,canal wall–down mastoidectomy ,and ossicular reconstruction was done.

RESULTS: Our study group comprised of  213 patients with majority of patients 157 (73.70%)  were in the age group 18 to 30 years .Of  213 patients 129 (60.56%) were females and 84 (39.43) were males.General quality of life using  SF –36 was seen improved  after  surgical intervention in all patients with CSOM with  total mean (79.51, 83.59, 86.89  preoperatively, at 6 months, at 1 year respectively) with p–value <0.001

CONCLUSION                                                                                                                                                                          

Based on the observations of our study we concluded that General health related quality  of  life measured with SF–36 improved after surgical intervention at 6 months and 1year.Comparison of SF–36 questionnaire values (mean)   preoperatively, at 6 months and at 1 year was done which showed improvement at 6 months and then at 1 year of follow up between its sub–scales with p–value <0.001.