Abstract
Purpose: :
To investigate the risk of motor vehicle collisions (MVC) in patients with primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) and compare it with controls.
Methods: :
One-hundred twenty-one subjects with diagnosis of POAG (male/female 79/42; age 64.0±9.1; mean deviation in the right eye:-5.12±4.95 dB) who came to the Tanabe eye clinic from January 1 2009 to April 30 2009 were enrolled in this study. All subjects underwent a complete ophthalmic examination and Humphrey visual field testing. One-hundred forty-four controls (male/female 95/49; age 62.3±8.5) were recruited from subjects who came to the clinic for annual check up from January 1 2009 to April 30 2009. The diagnosis of glaucoma was a typical glaucomatous abnormal optic nerve head associated with typical glaucomatous visual field loss and open angle at gonioscopy. All subjects were requested to answer a questionnaire including height, weight, presence of diabetes, hypertension, MVC experience in 10 years, driving history and driving hours per day. Data were collected and statistically analyzed between POAG patients and controls.
Results: :
The number of subjects with MVC experience were higher in POAG patients compared to the control [POAG; 7(7/121=5.7%) control;5 (5/144=3.4%)],relatively. No other significant difference was observed. In subgroup analysis, we compared the number of subjects with MVC experience between POAG patients with the mean deviation in hemi-visual field over -10 dB and controls. The number of MVC in sever POAG patients was significantly higher than controls [severe POAG; 5 (5/20=25.0%) control 5 (5/144=3.4%) P=0.002; fisher`s exact test)]. Corrected visual acuity was significantly worse in severe POAG group than controls. No other significant difference was observed. After the logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio for MVC in severe POAG was 16.0 (P=0.001;95%CI: 2.9-88.0) .
Conclusions: :
The number of MVC in sever POAG patients was significantly higher than controls (P=0.002).Glaucoma with hemi-visual field defect may be a risk for motor vehicle accident.
Keywords: visual fields • quality of life • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: risk factor assessment