RESUMEN
Aim of the Study: To test whether daily saline nasal irrigation (SNI) improves sinus symptoms in adult subjects with chronicrhinosinusitis (CRS) and also to study the safety of saline irrigation, incidence of any complication and improvement in qualityof life (QOL) in these patients.Materials and Methods: This was a prospective observational study conducted between two groups of patients at GovernmentT D Medical College, Alappuzha. Patients who satisfied the criteria for diagnosing CRS were included in the study. The firstgroup was given SNI with oral drug therapy, while the second group was put on oral drugs alone. Each subject was given apretested, structured questionnaire. Along with socio-demographic information, the questionnaire also contained queries ofQOL measure, compliance of nasal irrigation and adverse effects following its use.Results: The pre-treatment scores and post-treatment scores were analyzed and the results were statistically significant withP < 0.001 in all. About 77% of the patients in the saline irrigation group were strictly using SNI which meant satisfactory complianceand the improvement in post-treatment scores were statistically highly significant with a P < 0.001. Furthermore, there was astatistically significant difference between the mean pre-test and post-test scores between the two groups with P < 0.001 andt-values of 51.942 using the paired t-test.Conclusion: Chronic rhinsinusitis has a major negative impact on the health care and economy of not only the patients butalso of society. SNI is an effective yet easy method of therapy in alleviating the symptoms of CRS and improving the QOL ofthese chronic sufferers.