Background: Tonsillectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures performed worldwide, especially for children. Severe pain and difficulty swallowing are common complaints encountered in children after tonsillectomy. Oral honey administration after tonsillectomy in pediatric cases may decrease the need for analgesics through relieving postoperative pain. Moreover, honey has been increasingly used in modern medicine as a potent wound healing agent due to its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory effects.
Aim of the study: to evaluate the effect of using oral bee honey on postoperative pain and wound healing for children after tonsillectomy.
Design: A Quasi-experimental research design was utilized to conduct the current study.
Setting: The study was conduct at the ENT department in Benha health insurance hospital affiliated to Ministry of Health.
Subjects: A simple random sample of 556 tonsillectomy children who selected according to the study formula based on the total number of children who admitted to the above setting during 2013.These were randomly allocated into two groups; study and control.
Tools of date collection: Three tools were used; a structural interviewing questionnaire sheet to collect personal data, numerical pain rating scale was used to assess the severity of pain and postoperative assessment tool to evaluate the wound healing through the ability of the child to speak, swallow, and eating. Also, it used to assess daily analgesics consumption and number of awake at night due to pain.
Results: postoperative pain, daily analgesics consumption, and number of awake at night due to pain in oral bee honey group was significantly less than in the control group at different time of assessment started from first till 5 days after surgery (p˂0.001). However, wound healing was significantly better in oral bee honey group than in the control group at different time of assessment started from second till 5 days after surgery (p˂0.001).
Conclusion : Based on the result of the present study it can be concluded that, the research hypothesis is accepted, while it was found that the administration of oral bee honey after wake up, following tonsillectomy significantly enhancing wound healing, reduce postoperative pain and may substantially decrease the need for analgesics and number of awake at night due to pain.
Recommendation : Oral bee honey can be a part of hospitals’ protocols for alleviate pain and promote wound healing after tonsillectomy. Further researches are needed to assess the potential use of bee honey in wound healing and pain relief after tonsillectomy in other hospitals to generalized the finding results. |
