Abstract
Purpose :
Although LASIK (laser in situ keratomileusis) surgery has become widely known in Japan, there are few studies regarding the psychological effects on the LASIK patients. Thus it is of crucial importance to observe the subjective happiness among the patients over the course of the surgery. In this retrospective study, we analyzed the data to understand whether LASIK surgery would affect the patients' subjective state of happiness.
Methods :
The analysis was conducted on 342 patients (mean age was 33.95 years old; range was 17 to 64), who underwent LASIK surgery and completed Lymbomirsky's Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) at preoperatively and one-month postoperatively. SHS consists of four items rated on a 7-point Likert scale requiring individuals to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the statements. The first three items are related to the state of happiness, and the last one related to unhappiness, which is reverse coded. We also analyzed the correlation between the patients' subjective happiness and their uncorrected visual acuity (logarithmic minimum angle of resolution, logMAR) as well as their subjective refraction (spherical equivalent.) of the right eye.
Results :
The pre- and post-operative mean scores of the first three items (± standard deviation: SD) were as follows: (the item 1) 5.48 (± 1.07) and 5.65 (± 1.07), (the item 2) 5.26 (± 1.08) and 5.44 (± 1.09), and (the item 3) 4.90 (± 1.30) and 5.11 (± 1.24), respectively. The pre- and post-operative score of the last item was 5.21 (± 1.31) and 5.22 (± 1.46), respectively. We found the significant increase in the scores of the first three items: the item 1 (p = 0.04), the item 2 (p = 0.03), and the item 3 (p = 0.03), respectively, and non-significant change in the score of the last item (p = 0.97) after the LASIK surgery. We could not observe any correlation between the patients' subjective happiness and the improvement of their uncorrected visual acuity (r = 0.0013), nor their subjective refraction (r = 0.0001).
Conclusions :
LASIK surgery can somehow positively affect the patients' psychological state of happiness. Further studies are required to underpin what factor is directly related to the increase in patients' subjective happiness.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.