Ménière’s Disease: Evaluation of Psychological Aspects in Patients Submitted to the Duct and Sac Decompression (DASD) Surgical Technique

Purpose: Measuring the quality of life and psychological distress is essential for setting up adequate health care.The study aims to evaluate the quality of life and the presence of psychological distress in subjects with Mnires Disease (MD) and to identify the protective factors that contribute to psychological well-being.Furthermore, it is proposed to evaluate whether Duct and Sac Decompression (DASD) surgery improves the quality of life and the perceived psychological distress.Methods: A sample of 50 patients with MD and indication to DASD between October 2020 and November 2021 was collected.Structured questionnaires before and after surgery were used to measure quality of life (DHI-I), general distress and symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress (DASS-21) as well as Resilience Skills (RS-14).Results: Significant differences were found before and after DASD surgery technique.More specifically Student's t test showed an improvement of DHI-I total score as well as of emotional, physical and functional subscales.Also, mood (anxiety and depression) and stress resulted all improved as a function of surgery intervention.No relevant change has been observed on resilience scores. Conclusion:The study shows the impact of vertigo on the quality of life and psychological well-being of the patient with Mnires disease before surgery.DASD surgery technique showed to be able to improve several psychological aspects among which mood, emotional aspects linked to dizziness, and stress.Therefore, improving quality of life and psychological well-being should be a major goal of any therapeutic intervention, and clinicians should consider additional treatment strategies in addition to pharmacological and surgical ones.Among these, psychological therapies may also be needed to improve outcomes in both surgical and non-surgical treatments.