Patient satisfaction after trigeminal nerve repair.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to measure patient satisfaction and to evaluate the factors influencing patients' perceptions of the outcome of inferior alveolar nerve or lingual nerve repair.

STUDY

DESIGN

We used a retrospective cohort study design and a sample of patients who underwent repair of inferior alveolar nerve or lingual nerve injuries. The major outcome variable was the patient's overall satisfaction with treatment. The patient's satisfaction was rated as either good to excellent (group A) or fair to poor (group B).

RESULTS

The study sample was composed of 46 patients with a mean age of 28 +/- 12 years; 76% were female. Fifty-five percent of the sample reported their overall satisfaction to be good to excellent. No individual predictor factors were statistically associated with patient satisfaction. Among the outcome variables, the measures of taste, pronunciation, self-consciousness, and function were statistically significantly different (P <.05) between the 2 groups.

CONCLUSIONS

After nerve repair, more than half of the patients rated their overall satisfaction with the operative results to be good to excellent.