Abstract
Background: Common ear, nose, and throat disorders contribute substantially to outpatient morbidity. Evidence describing the case mix, management workload, and short-term outcomes of broad ENT services in rural teaching hospitals remains limited. Objective: To describe the demographic and clinical spectrum of common otorhinolaryngological disorders, investigations performed, surgical workload, disease severity, patient satisfaction, and three-month outcomes at a rural tertiary care teaching hospital. Methods: This prospective observational study included 658 patients with common ENT disorders who completed three months of follow-up. Patients were grouped as having ear, nose/paranasal sinus, or throat/ laryngopharyngeal disorders. Clinical diagnoses, selected investigation findings, treatment modality, surgical procedures, baseline severity category, three-month satisfaction, and categorical clinical outcomes were recorded. The analysis was descriptive and used frequencies and percentages. Results: The cohort included 198 patients with ear disorders (30.1%), 248 with nasal disorders (37.7%), and 212 with throat disorders (32.2%). Participants aged 21-40 years constituted 37.7%, 55.0% were male, and 74.8% were rural residents. Chronic suppurative otitis media was the most frequent ear diagnosis (62/198, 31.3%), allergic rhinitis the most frequent nasal diagnosis (76/248, 30.6%), and chronic tonsillitis the most frequent throat diagnosis (72/212, 34.0%). Among selected patients investigated, positivity ranged from 74.4% for plain radiography of the paranasal sinuses to 95.2% for histopathology. Surgery was performed in 196 patients (29.8%); septoplasty (23.5% of operations) and tonsillectomy (21.4%) were most frequent. At three months, 564 patients (85.7%) were satisfied or very satisfied. Complete recovery or significant improvement was recorded in 604 patients (91.8%). Conclusion: Inflammatory and infective disorders dominated this rural hospital ENT caseload. Most patients were managed without surgery, while septoplasty and tonsillectomy accounted for the largest operative workload. Short-term categorical outcomes and satisfaction were favourable among follow-up completers; however, the heterogeneous diagnoses, absence of disease-specific change scores, and exclusion of patients lost to follow-up limit causal interpretation and comparison with other centres.
Keywords: Otorhinolaryngology; Rural health services; Disease spectrum; Septoplasty; Tonsillectomy; Patient satisfaction