Strength, limitations and comparison with other studies
Our study is the first to report patient satisfaction on drainless outpatient parotidectomy in the United Kingdom. A validated questionnaire was also used, improving the reliability of our results. This study also allows us to understand the patients’ point of view on drainless outpatient parotidectomy and provides guidance to service providers to improve the current standard of care.
This is a single institution study and the results may be limited by the small sample size. Selection bias when selecting patients for day case procedure may also affect the results negatively. Although our results show that 16/28 (57.1%) of patients preferred to stay overnight in the hospital, the hospital stay of eight patients was justified for various medical and social reasons. This may result in patients having biased responses when responding to questions about their preference to stay overnight. Therefore, patient satisfaction on same day hospital discharge may have been underestimated in our cohort. Surgeon’s perspective on drainless outpatient parotidectomy was also not explored, nor was a cost analysis performed to compare the costs of drainless outpatient parotidectomy to those of inpatient parotidectomy. Furthermore, the uni-dimensional nature of the 5 point Likert scale and social desirability factors may compromise the measurement of patient satisfaction in our series.