Parents' satisfaction with repair of paediatric cleft lip/cleft palate in Honduras.

Background: Operation Smile is a non-profit organization that provides free cleft lip and cleft palate repair to impoverished children worldwide. To date, no longitudinal studies of satisfaction among these patients or their families have been published.

Objectives: In a cohort of parents of children receiving cleft lip/cleft palate repair, to assess parental satisfaction and fulfillment of expectations.

Methods: A prospective cohort study with pre-operative and 6-month post-operative interviews of parents of 45 patients of the Operation Smile mission in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 2007 was undertaken. Patients were recruited from a total of 96 who underwent surgery, with follow-up data available for 22 of them (49% of participants). Pre-operative interviews concerned expectations regarding surgery, and post-operative interviews addressed surgical outcomes and satisfaction.

Results: Mean patient age was 4 years (range 3 months to 17 years); 51% underwent isolated cleft lip repair, and 49% cleft palate repair. This was the first surgery for 53%, the remainder having had previous surgery on one to six occasions. Pre-operatively, parents expressed expectations that speech (n = 26), appearance (n = 21) or feeding (n = 17) would improve. Among the 22 re-interviewed 6 months after surgery, two had experienced minor and one major post-operative complications. Only 14 of 22 had all their pre-operative expectations fulfilled. All except one parent reported satisfaction with the surgery.

Conclusion: Despite unmet expectations, parents of children who received medical mission surgery for cleft lip or cleft palate express satisfaction with outcomes. Other factors are likely to influence expressions of satisfaction in this setting.