Abstract
Purpose: :
To explore the relationship between myopia and quality of life (QoL) in an urban Asian population.
Methods: :
The Singapore Malay Eye Study is a population-based study of adult Malays aged 40-80 years. This analysis included 2,974 persons without prior cataract surgery. Myopia was defined as spherical equivalence (SE) ≤ -0.50 Diopter (D), with low myopia defined as SE -0.5 to -2.99 D and moderate/high myopia SE ≤-3.0 D. Emmetropes and hypermetropes, defined as SE >-0.50D, were non-myopic controls. Rasch-calibrated overall and 9 individual item scores (logits (L)) of the VF-9 were used as QoL measures. Analyses were adjusted for age, gender and educational attainment.
Results: :
The prevalence of myopia (≤ -0.5D) in this population was 32.4% (n=952) [95% CI: 30.7, 34.1%] of which 72.2% (n=687) and 27.8% (n=265) were categorized as having low and moderate/high myopia, respectively. The mean overall person scores of the VF-9 were significantly lower for low myopes (3.53 L) compared to non-myopes (3.68 L), with scores lower for moderate or high myopes (3.47 L) as compared to non-myopes (3.68 L) (p<0.001 for all). Similar significant differences were found between myopes and non-myopes on 4 of the 9 individual items: difficulty in ‘seeing stairs’; ‘reading street or shop signs’; ‘recognizing friends’; and ‘watching television’ (all p< 0.001).
Conclusions: :
Persons with myopia, particularly those with moderate to high myopia, reported greater difficulties in overall QoL and on several vision-dependent daily activities.
Keywords: myopia • quality of life