Purpose:
To identify the psychological impact and the social needs of low vision people in Spain, to highlight the impact of these problems in these patients’ daily live activities.
Methods:
This was a prospective, consecutive, case-control multicenter study. In this research 100 volunteer patients attending to either the ophthalmic medical services of the IOBA, the University Hospital of Valladolid, and the Retinitis Pigmentosa Association participated. The volunteers were divided in two groups: low vision group and non low vision group.The instruments used for evaluation of each patient were: CUBRECAVI, GDS, STAI, IDER, VF14. Besides, the visual acuity and contrast sensitivity were gathered. Mini-mental state examination was administered in order to exclude those participants with cognitive deterioration.The data were collected by two trained evaluators and the instruments were administered in an individual interview format, in two different sessions of one hour. The research fulfilled the principles of Helsinki declaration.The data were analyzed with the SPSS.15 program. We did an ANOVA test to contrast the mean differences between the experimental and control group. We also did a contingency analysis in order to compare the performance of both groups on dichotomic variables. Frequency analyses for the socio-demographic variables were also conducted.
Results:
The Participants mean age was 67.71 years (SD= 9.42), 54% were fe-male and 46% male. People with low vision have higher levels of depression and anxiety, worse perceived health, poorer subjective well being, and in gen-eral a worse quality of life. They also have a poorer functional status in terms of ability to carry out both ADLs and IADLs than their fully sighted counterparts
Conclusions:
Emotional well-being is affected in patients with vision impairment, as evidence suggests that patients with vision impairment and emotional distress are likely to show increased functional disability and less autonomy
Keywords: low vision • quality of life • aging