Mental health and quality of life in patients who have chronic otitis media with cholesteatoma and without cholesteatoma

Chronic otitis media (COM) is a disease characterized by perforation of the tympanic membrane, hearing loss and intermittent otorrhea. COM can be seen together with cholesteatoma or without cholesteatoma. Cholesteatoma is a tissue made up of ectopic squamous cells with a matrix on the germinative layer of keratin debris in the temporal bone/middle ear. COM may adversely affect language development depending on hearing loss and patients' social relationships associated with otorrhea. In this study, we aimed to evaluate quality of life and mental health in chronic otitis media patients with cholesteatoma or without cholesteatoma. Our study was performed between April 2013 and May 2014 in total 73 patients who were at least 18 years old and literate. The study consisted of three groups: 1. COM with cholesteatoma (25 patients), 2. COM without cholesteatoma (27 patients) and 3. control group without COM (21 patients). Short form-36 was used to evaluate the quality of life of patients, brief symptom inventory was used to investigate the psychological problems and the state of anxiety and the trait anxiety scale (STAI-TX1, TX2) was used to determine anxiety states. In brief symptom inventory, somatization in patients with cholesteatoma and without cholesteatoma COM were significantly higher than in control groups. But the cholesteatoma and without cholesteatoma COM groups were similar. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety disorder, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychoticism, additional agents (loss of appetite, inability to sleep), disease severity index, total index scores of symptoms was similar seen in the 3 groups. In the SF-36 scale, the pain and terms of overall health parameters were revealed statistically significant between COM with cholesteatoma and control groups when COM without cholesteatoma groups were similar to others. In cholesteatoma COM, physical and social functioning was significantly higher compared to control groups. As a result COM is a disease that can lead to psychological problems. Compliance of the patient in the treatment process and monitoring of the patients for mental health in terms quality of life is necessary. Keywords: chronic otitis media, cholesteatoma, quality of life, mental health