Patients` compliance with instructions after oral surgery in Nigeria

Abstract

Objective: To prospectively study the behaviour of oral surgery patients given verbal and written instructions, verbal instructions alone and written instructions alone after minor surgical procedures to return for review visits, remember correctly form of instruction given, compliance and level of satisfaction with treatment. Method: Patients for minor oral surgery were given one of the following: verbal and written (group A), verbal only (group B) and written only (group C) instructions 30 minutes to one hour after the procedure. Patients in groups A and B were consecutively recruited to have 150 patients in group A and 50 in group B. Group C was made up of 25 patients who all claimed to have had at least six years of formal education in the English language. One week postoperatively, information was sought, through questionnaire administration, from all study patients who came for review on remembrance of form of postoperative instructions given, compliance, expectations from procedure and level of satisfaction with treatment. Results: Patients\' return rate was 93, 54 and 64% for groups A, B and C respectively. Remembrance of correct form in which instructions were given was not significantly different among the various groups (p=0.5). There was significantly better compliance among group B patients to the instruction on the use of warm saline mouthwash (warm saline) than groups A and C, (p=0.04). Non compliance with antibiotic therapy was significantly more among group A than other patients (p=0.03) but no significant difference was observed in analgesic non compliance (p=0.9). Postoperative expectations were not significantly different among the three groups of patients. Patients in group A showed a higher level of satisfaction with treatment (76%) than other patients (63-67%) though the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusion: The study showed that provision of both written and verbal postoperative instructions to patients after minor oral surgery enhances compliance. Keywords: oral surgery, verbal and written instruction, dental compliance Journal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care 2005, 17(1): 38-44