Abstract
Purpose: The nasal medication spray is routinely used in the ENT office for the treatment of rhinitis and sinusitis. However, patients may sometimes feel discomfort with its use, or have a phobia against this device. To reduce the discomfort, a new spray has been developed, in which the drops sprayed are half the size of the previous systems, and the volume per second has been reduced by two-thirds. The present study was designed to compare the discomfort between the use of the new sprayer and the old one.
Materials and methods: Twenty healthy volunteers were examined. Three otolaryngologists randomly sprayed the subject's nose cavity with saline six times, at one second intervals at random. On the every spray, their feeling was assessed; a score of 1 indicated comfortable; a score of 2, no particular feeling; a score of 3, a little uncomfortable; a score of 4, uncomfortable; and a score of 5, very uncomfortable.
Results: The mean of the degree of discomfort was 2.6±0.9 or 3.1±1.0 with the new or the old sprayer, respectively. There were significant differences between the two.
Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the new sprayer can effectively reduce patients' discomfort during treatment.
