Indications and quality of life in tracheotomised patients at Muhimbili National Hospital

Abstract

Background: Tracheostomy is a surgical procedure in which an incision is made on the anterior aspect of the neck allowing a direct airway through an incision into the trachea. It is a common intervention in alleviating conditions involving airway pathologies. Like many other surgical intervention, tracheostomy can also lead to undesirable complications leading to negative impact on quality of life of patients. Furthermore, tracheostomized patients tend to have primary disease which may also have the influence on Quality of life. Hence Indications and QOL assessment has become paramount importance to analyze significance improvement in treatment in tracheostomies such that more focus can be made on affected aspects so that to improve support measures among tracheostomies for an overall better outcome of these patients. Objective: To determine the Indications and quality of life in tracheostomized patients at Muhimbili National Hospital. Materials and Methods: This was a hospital-based analytical cross-sectional study conducted at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es salaam, Tanzania for 6 months from November 2020 to May 2021 which included consented Tracheostomized patients who had tracheostomy for at least 1 week. Data was collected in form of an interview using a well-structured Questionnaire which included the modified version of TQOL instrument developed by the University of Washington to evaluate TQOL based on 12 items. Data regarding indications and primary diagnosis was extracted from patient’s records, hence termed as predictive factors. The TQOL instrument’s scoring manual was applied to obtain an average score of QOL before and after tracheostomy, where by the higher the average scores the better the QOL. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and sample paired t test were used in analysis and statistical significant was determined for the predictive factors before and after tracheostomy.