Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose:To estimate the distributions of importance and difficulty of driving for low vision clinic patients and to determine how these distributions relate to central visual function and the cessation of driving. Methods: 95% of consecutive patients scheduled for their first visit to the Wilmer Low Vision Clinic were successfully recruited to serve as subjects. 851 subjects responded to 3 survey questions about driving (Do you have a driver license? Do you currently drive? If no, when did you last drive?). Subjects also rated the importance and difficulty of driving. Results:Subjects effectively dichotomized the importance of driving rating: 41% responded "not important" and 55% responded "extremely important." Visual acuity and contrast sensitivity were worse for those who reported that driving is not important (p<.001). For the group who responded that driving is not important, 29% had a driver license, but 2% currently drove. Among non–drivers who rated driving as not important, 46% had not driven in more than 2 years and 31% had never driven. For the group who responded that driving is extremely important, 77% had a driver license and 46% reported that they currently drove. Among non–drivers who rated driving as extremely important, 64% had stopped driving within the past 2 years. For the 59% of subjects who assigned non–zero importance to driving, 19% responded that driving is not difficult to do and 37% responded that driving is impossible. Visual acuity monotonically decreased with rated driving difficulty, ranging from an average of 20/36 for subjects who responded that driving is not difficult to an average of 20/100 for those who responded that driving is impossible. Similarly, contrast sensitivity was negatively correlated with the driving difficulty rating. Among those who reported that driving is not difficult, 98% had a driver license and 84% currently drove. Among those who reported that driving is impossible to do, 50% had a driver license, but only 1% currently drove. Conclusions:Driving is an extremely important goal for more than half of low vision clinic patients. Driving is devalued approximately 2 years after the patient ceases driving. The proportion of low vision patients actively driving decreases with increases in the perceived difficulty of driving.
Keywords: low vision • quality of life • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: natural history