Abstract
Abstract: :
Purpose: Patient preference measures (PPM) or utilities represent an individual’s judgment about the value of a particular health state. PPMs are not only valuable for economic analyses of alternative treatments for a particular eye disease, they may provide the clinician with insight into patient satisfaction with a particular treatment and patient willingness to select a particular course of medical care. This study will assess the impact of eye disease or visual impairment on PPMs in a population-based sample of Latinos. Methods: The LALES is a population-based prevalence study of eye disease and quality of life (QOL) in Latinos, age 40 and older. The SF-12 was used to assess self-reported QOL. The SF-12 yields a mental health score and a physical health score. PPMs were estimated from an algorithm that converts the SF-12 item scores to a single summary preference score [range 0 (death) – 1 (perfect health)]. The estimated PPM scores were compared between participants with and without ocular disease using Student t-test, and between participants with varying degrees of visual impairment using one-way ANOVA. Results: 2799 participants with complete SF-12 data were included in this analysis. Mean estimated PPMs for the entire cohort were 0.63 (+0.11). Mean estimated PPMs were significantly different between those with and without visual impairment (moderate or severe 0.64, mild visual impairment 0.65, no visual impairment 0.72), after adjusting for age, gender, and other demographic covariates (p=0.006). There were no differences in adjusted mean PPM scores for those with cataract (p =0.75), glaucoma (p =0.75), age related-macular degeneration (p =0.84) and diabetic retinopathy (p = 0.74) compared to those without eye disease. Conclusions: While PPMs are associated with visual impairment, the differences in PPMs with varying severities of visual impairment are small. Furthermore, no differences in PPMs were noted between those with and without eye disease. Thus, in order to obtain an accurate assessment of utilities, novel eye disease specific PPMs need to be developed to reflect patient preferences for various eye disorders.
Keywords: quality of life • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: hea • clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: out