Purpose:
To examine associations between socio/demographical and clinical measures of visual function and patient-reported outcomes as assessed by both the vision-specific National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ25) and health-related quality of life SF-36 questionnaire in patients with long-standing Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease.
Methods:
NEI-VFQ25 and SF-36 were administered by a single trained interviewer. Clinical measures of visual ability included visual acuity (VA), fundus-based disease severity, full-field and multifocal electroretinogram (ff-ERG, mf-ERG). Differences in scores of SF-36 and NEI-VFQ-25 subscales among subgroups were analysed with the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests
Results:
Data for 49 long-standing (≥ 6 mo from disease onset) VKH disease patients was collected (mean age 43.9+14.6y). NEI-VFQ composite score was lower in: low household income, active eye disease, low visual acuity (score=41 [18.2-65.7] vs 58.1 [17.2-92.6], p=0.006) and in the presence of ocular complications(score=50.6 [17.2-84.1] vs 69.7 [24.7-92.6], p=0.017). SF-36 composite score was lower in unemployed patients; and were higher in those in use of intra/periocular drug (mental component summary score=75.5 [58.9-97] vs 53.2 [11.1-87.7], p=0.0024) as well as in those who had undergone any ocular surgery (mental component summary score=78.1 [26.9-92.5] vs 55 [12.5-95], p=0.019). No difference was found between the questionnaires response and fundus-based, ffERG, mfERG disease severity grading.
Conclusions:
The perceived difficulties experienced by long-standing VKH patients appear to be related to visual acuity, disease activity and the presence of ocular complications. Patient reported outcomes are better detected with NEI-VFQ than SF36.
Keywords: quality of life • uveitis-clinical/animal model