Sarcouncil Journal of Medical Series

Abstract: Otitis media (OM) stands as the most common childhood ailment, which impacts approximately 80% of children who reach three years of age. The clinical symptoms of OM cause substantial health-related quality of life (HRQoL) deterioration for both affected children and their family members. The OM-6 and OSA-18 disease-specific instruments deliver certified functional impairment evaluation tools which currently lack research evidence that shows how treatment impacts these specific areas in Middle Eastern groups. Objective The study aims to assess how medical and surgical interventions affect health-related quality of life outcomes in children who have otitis media through the OM-6 and OSA-18 assessment tools while discovering factors that lead to substantial clinical improvement. Methods: The study was a prospective cohort study in various hospitals from Iraq from March 2024 to February 2026. This current study included 135 children, ages 2–12 years, with a diagnosis of otitis media (OM). Parents completed the OM-6 and OSA-18 questionnaires at baseline and at 3 months post-treatment. The researchers used paired t-tests together with Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and logistic regression analyses to study changes while discovering factors that led to better results where according to outcomes, were found Patients experienced substantial advancements across all OM-6 domains, which generated statistical significance with p < 0.001 and produced the greatest impact through the physical suffering domain, which received a Cohen's d score of 1.42. OSA-18 domains showed statistically significant post-treatment improvement, which reached p < 0.001, especially in sleep disturbance, which received a Cohen's d score of 1.28. Conclusion: Improvements in health-related quality of life following treatment of OM are significant on both the OM-6 and OSA-18 scales. The best predictor of favourable outcomes is baseline disease severity. The results confirm the feasibility of using PROMs in the clinical evaluation of children with OM.