A prospective, single center analysis of satisfaction following cleft lip and palate surgeries in Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Objective: Aim of this study was to assess satisfaction with facial appearance and function following cleft lip and palate (CLP) surgeries. Materials and Methods: The surgical outcome of 70 consecutive patients who had CLP surgeries between October 2008 and December 2009 were prospectively evaluated at least 4 weeks postoperatively. Data collected included age, sex, type of cleft defects and type of surgery done, and postoperative complications. For cleft lip repair, the Pennsylvania lip and nose score was used to assess surgical outcome whereas the integrity of the closure was used for cleft palate repair. Results: A total of 70 subjects were enrolled in this study with 40 females (57.1%) and 30 males (42.9%) (female:male = 1.3:1). The age of the subjects at presentation ranged from 1 day to 26 years. Majority of the study group were infants 74.3% (52) and 25.7% (18) presented after age one. 19 (39.6%) of subjects were operated within the ages of 3 months for lip repair and 10 (45.5%) subjects after 18 months for palate repair. There was a good surgical outcome of 71.4% with an overwhelming parents/subjects satisfaction of 94.8% with the treatment outcome. Twelve cases (15.6%) in which surgical outcome was rated fair, the subjects or their parents were still very satisfied with the surgical outcome. Conclusions: There was a high patient satisfaction irrespective of treatment outcome. This satisfaction reflects not only the technical competence of the cleft surgeons, but also the dedicated performance of other supporting staffs of the hospital.

Keywords

• cleft lip and palate
• patient satisfaction
• pennsylvania lip and nose score
• von langenbeck