Abstract
Purpose: :
To determine if a relationship exists between stated occupation of patients who elect LASIK surgery and a diagnosis of binocular vision disorders (BVD) post-surgery.
Methods: :
The stated occupations of 18 patients who complained of distance blur and were subsequently diagnosed with accommodative spasm and/or convergence insufficiency 3 months after surgery were compared to the stated occupations of 689 patients operated during the same 2 ½ yr time period who did not complain. Review of existing chart data was used to provide data. Occupation categories (a total of 17) were established based on prior literature; occupational vision stress was estimated for each category on a scale of 1 (high stress) to 3 (low stress).
Results: :
Occupations were provided in the charts of 649 of the total 707 patients (91.8%). Over half of the individuals who elected LASIK surgery were from 5 occupational categories: professional (non-medical), service, information technology, office, and legal. Occupations were given for 14 of the 18 BVD patients (77.8%). Although all 17 categories of occupation were represented in the NBVD, only 7 were represented in BVD patients: professional (non-medical), service, information technology, office, legal, consultant, and self-employed. The distribution of patients among these 7 categories was statistically different for BVD and NBVD (Chi-square goodness-of-fit = 48.4, df = 6, p < .01). Within the 7 categories represented by both BVD and NBVD patients, the most frequent occupations for BVD patients were information technology and service (21.4% each), while the most frequent occupation for NBVD patients was professional (non-medical), at 35.9%. Percentages of NBVD/ BVD patients in each category were: professional 35.9/ 14.3, service 19.0/ 21.4, information technology 17.4/ 21.4, office 10.6/ 7.1, legal 10.3/ 14.3, consultant 4.6/ 14.3, self-employed 2.2/ 7.1. BVD patients’ estimated occupation-related visual stress was 1.71 on the 3-point scale, which was statistically higher than the estimated stress of the NBVD patients at 2.02 (p=.048, t-test).
Conclusions: :
In a retrospective chart review based on post-operative diagnosis of binocular vision disorder (BVD), BVD patients who reported their occupations tended to be in jobs with higher estimated visual stress than non-BVD patients. More research is needed with larger samples that include pre-operative measurements of binocular vision status to determine the precise nature of this relationship.
Keywords: laser • binocular vision/stereopsis • accomodation