Material and methods
In this prospective clinical trial, all surgeries were done by a single surgeon as to decrease variability in the management of each patient. Patients were divided into two groups, one that received the conventional gauze throat packs and those that received pharyngeal tampons (figure 1.1 and figure 1.2) . The allocation of patients was done on the day of the surgery dependant on the first patient that was admitted in the morning , the allocation of the first patient was decided by coin toss , if the first patient was kept in the pharyngeal tampon group the subsequent patient was kept in the conventional guaze throat pack group and it alternated till the end of the list. This allowed for randomisation and equal distribution among the 2 groups.
Our study population included all adult patients that underwent rhinology procedures that required the use of a throat pack between January of 2018 to January of 2019., Minors below the age of 18 and rhinology procedures that required no throat pack were excluded from the study. The Institutional review board provided ethical approval for approved the study, and signed informed consent was obtained from all patients.
Post-operative pain was assessed using the visual analogue scale10 ,(figure 1.3) patients were asked on a scale of 1 to 10 on the amount of pain they were experiencing in various post op periods, where 1 was the lowest amount of pain and 10 was the highest amount of pain. Patients were seen at 1 hour and on the 4th hour post operatively and were called via phone 24 hours later to assess the amount of pain they were experiencing. All data collected was recorded in an excel sheet.
Post-operative nausea was assessed using the PONV impact scale11 (figure 1.4). It includes 2 questions , one of which is whether the patient had experienced any dry retching or vomiting, and the second one being if they experienced nausea. A final score (PONV Impact scale) was calculated using the responses to the previous two questions. A PONV Impact Score of ≥5 defines clinically important PONV. Patients were seen at 1 hour and on the 4th hour post operatively and were called via phone 24 hours later, to assess the amount of nausea and vomiting they were experiencing. All data collected was recorded in an excel sheet.
T Test and levenes test was done on the date and All data was analyzed using SPSS Statistics software version 25.