Abstract
Purpose :
Vision related quality of life were reported to be lower in visually impaired and highly myopic subjects in previous studies. With increasing prevalence of high myopia in Singapore, we would like to investigate if the quality of life is affected by high myopia in a group of young healthy pre-presbyopic myopic adults.
Methods :
One hundred and eighty-eight myopic subjects (SE ≥ 0.75) with range of 18 to 37 (mean age = 23 ± 4.2) were recruited. They were free of any ocular or systemic diseases, with binocular aided visual acuity 6/12 or better with their current spectacles or contact lenses. Refractive Status and Vision Profile (RSVP) questionnaire was self administered.
Grading score of 0 to 100% was used for each question. The subset scores were added and averaged. A non-parametric test, the Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA was performed for 3 myopic groups: low (SE -0.75 to -3.00 D), moderate (SE < -3.00 D to > -6.00 D) and high (SE < -6.00 D)
Results :
The quality of life scores for corrected vision with spectacles and contact lenses were found to be similar among the 3 myopia groups, in the range of 74 to 79 for spectacle correction and 73 to 79 for contact lens correction. However, they were significantly different (F2, 126 = 12.2; P < 0.001) with the scores of 62, 50 and 39 for low, moderate and high myopes, respectively without vision correction. This was especially true for functional work; myopic subjects with -3.00 D or higher reported moderate to severe difficulties in 11 out of the 14 functional tasks in daily life, if they were not corrected. In terms of perception of their vision, high myopes were significantly more worried (H2 = 15.2, P < 0.001) and frustrated (H2 = 19.7, P < 0.001) about their vision; they felt that their vision holds them back more (H2 = 12.3, P = 0.002), compared to the moderate and low myopes. High myopes also felt that their vision makes them less self-sufficient (H2 = 14.4, P < 0.001) and they were afraid to do certain things (H2 = 13.8, P = 0.001), compared to the low myopes.
Conclusions :
Vision correction, either with spectacles or contact lenses, improves the quality of life drastically in young, healthy adults with high degree of myopia. Even though the total quality of life scores did not show statistical significance, the perception of how vision may affect them was worse among the high myopes.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.