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 population. Ear disease can also cause debilitating physical symptoms such as ear pain and discharge which negatively impacts  quality of life (QoL). 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. Health–related quality of life (HR–QOL) has an ever increasing importance as an outcome parameter. For the proof of the success of surgical interventions, the evidence of an improvement of HR–QOL in addition to an improvement in objectively measurable parameters is required,so this prospective study was conducted in our department with the objective,To compare disease–specific quality of life in patients with CSOM before and after ear surgery using COMOT –15 questionnaire.

METHOD: This prospective study was conducted in 213 patients in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Government Medical College and associated SMHS Hospital Srinagar. All those patients who were treated at the Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at SMHS hospital Srinagar and fulfilling the inclusion criteria were  included in the study. Data  was collected   at three times of measurement (TM): pre–operatively (TM1), 6 months after surgery (TM2), and 12 months after surgery (TM3) using  COMOT–15 questionnaire.Tympanoplasty,Canal wall–up,canal wall–down mastoidectomy ,and ossicular reconstruction was done.

RESULTS: Our study group comprised of total 213 patients with majority of patients 157 (73.70%)  patients were in the age group 18 to 30 years of  age.Of  213 patients 129 (60.56%) were females and 84 (39.43) were males . The results of present study using COMOT–15 for Disease specific HR–QOL suggested that patients benefitted from surgery. Total mean Comot–15 values were (43.69, 21.10, 18.99  preoperatively, at 6 months and at 1 year respectively)

Conclusion                                                                                                        

By observations of our study we concluded that Disease  specific health related quality  of  life measured with COMOT–15 improved after surgical intervention at 6 months and 1year.