Reliability of Self-Reporting by Parents using Visual Analog Scale Scoring System in Non-Plastic Surgical Hospital Based Setting: An Analysis of Outcome in Cleft Lip and/or Palate Patients

Abstract

Background: Cleft lip and/or palate patients are common to depend upon charity events in developing countries. Regardless of these efforts, there has been criticism that the performance has been suboptimal and unmonitored. No consensus exists on the outcome and follow-up care has become the challenge in this type of setting due to the shortage of plastic surgeons. Aim: We propose a novel solution for resolving such issues for follow-up and
monitoring the outcome by using the Visual Analog Scale score reported by the parents. Methods: This was a prospective cohort study at our charity event in Yogyakarta in January 2017. Visual Analogue Scale score data range from 1 to 10 were obtained from parents separately on the appearance of their children before surgery, immediately after surgery, and one year later. Results: Thirty-five parents whose 20 children underwent cheiloplasty and 15 palatoplasty were enrolled as respondents. The score for before, immediately after, and one year after cheiloplasty were 3.4 with 95%CI (2.79-4.01), 7.95 with 95%CI (7.33-8.57), 8.75 with 95%CI (8.49-9.01) and Pvalue <0.01. Palatoplasty’s score was 4.33 with 95%CI (3.41-5.26), 7.80 with 95%CI (7.04-8.56), and 7.20 with 95%CI (6.89-7.51) and P-value <0.01. Conclusion: The outcome of cleft lip and/or cleft palate surgeries performed in a charity event with non-plastic surgical hospital based setting provides a decent result by a significant increase when appraised using Visual Analog Scale score directly by parents before and one-year after the surgery. There is a non-inferiority result of surgeries performed in charity event settings.