A RANDOMISED CONTROLLED STUDY TO EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SHORTWAVE DIATHERMY IN ACUTE SINUSITIS

Abstract

Background: Sinusitis is the inflammation of the mucous lining of any or all of the paranasal sinuses. It is a very common condition with a high incidence rate. It also shows high recurrence of symptoms which causes high damage to the patient and disables him/her to carry out daily activities efficiently. Availability of medical options has increased but so has the rate of antibiotics resistance. Therefore, it becomes a necessity to prevent recurrence of symptoms by providing an adequate overall treatment in the initial i.e. the acute phase of sinusitis. Shortwave diathermy is a deep heating modality. Extensive literature is available on various medical and surgical treatment options for sinusitis but there is lack of sufficient evidence on use of shortwave diathermy-a physiotherapy modality, for the cases of sinusitis. Hence, this study is done to evaluate the effectiveness of shortwave diathermy in acute sinusitis. Materials and Methods: 30 subjects between 18-50 years age with acute sinusitis were referred by E.N.T. department of KLES Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital. They were divided into 2 groups with 15 subjects in each group randomly where allocation was done by envelope method. Subject in Group A were treated with placebo SWD (20 minutes) and medications for 5 days. Subjects in Group B were treated with shortwave diathermy (20 minutes) and medications for 5 days. Outcome was measured with help of SNOT-22 (Sinonasal Outcome Test-22) questionnaire which was filled on first day prior to the treatment session and on the fifth day after the completion of five treatment sessions. To assess the changes in pre-treatment and post-treatment symptoms in both the groups, the data was analyzed with the paired t-test. Results: The percentage of change in SNOT-22 scores pre-treatment and post-treatment in Group A was 23.36% whereas in Group B was 46.54%. Conclusion: Shortwave diathermy along with medications is more effective then placebo SWD along with medications in treatment of acute sinusitis.