Publication:

Questionnaire to assess the significance of history taking in assessment of otitis media with effusion in children

Background There is a high prevalence of Otitis media with effusion (OME) with diagnoses of least 50% of children under the age of one, and 60% of children under the age of two. Complications have a significant impact on a child’s quality of life including hearing impairment, language acquisition delay, declining school performance, and behavioral problems. The objective of the study is to develop and test the reliability of a simple questionnaire based on common complaints given by caregivers of children with OME.

Methods 100 patients were included from the ENT Clinic at King Hamad University Hospital and categorized into preschool age (1-4 years) and School age (5-15 years). A bilingual binary questionnaire was developed (Cronbach’s Alpha: 0.89).

Results There were 22 preschool age patients, and 78 school age patients. Six complaints were significant where the child does not respond to name calling (p=0.031), needs to raise the TV volume (p=0.000), occasionally talks loudly (p=0.003), uses verbal communication for their needs (p=0.000), has episodes of clumsiness and dizziness (p=0.000), and doesn’t pronounce words correctly according to their age (p=0.008).

Conclusions Questionnaires based on complaints can aid the diagnosis of OME as caregiver’s assessment is often limited.