Background and objective.

Nasal fracture is the most common facial injury, accounting for more than 50% of all facial fractures in adults. Because it is often not diagnosed and treated promptly, it can generate different degrees of functional limitation and undesirable aesthetic results. Few studies evaluate the satisfaction of patients treated with the closed nasal fracture reduction technique.

Our objective is to evaluate functional and aesthetic satisfaction after closed reduction of a nasal bone fracture in a hospital in Colombia, using the nasal obstruction symptom evaluation (NOSE) and subjective aesthetic scales.

Methods.

Prospective analytical observational study of patients with nasal fractures undergoing closed reduction at the University Hospital of Santander, Colombia. The scores of the NOSE scales and subjective aesthetics were recorded, before and 2 months after surgery.

Results.

We evaluated 55 patients, 90.9% men. Median age 31 years (IQR 24-48). The main injury context was physical violence (40%), followed by traffic accident (32.7%). After the procedure, the patients presented improvement in nasal obstruction measured with the NOSE scale (p<0.001); before surgery, 89% had moderate-severe nasal obstruction, later it decreased to 14.5%. The NOSE scale showed reliability due to internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha of 0.8317. After surgery, there was an increase in satisfaction regarding the nasal appearance (p<0.001).

Conclusions.

The NOSE questionnaire allows us to quantify the improvement of nasal obstruction symptoms in patients with closed reduction due to nasal bone fracture. Improvement of nasal obstructive symptoms and increased aesthetic satisfaction was observed.

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