Anxiety, Depression and Vision- Related Quality of Life in Patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa.

Abstract

Purpose : Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is an inherited, progressive retinal disease that can lead to severe visual loss. However, there is no effective treatment for RP. They can have a seriously psychological stress and the affected quality of life. This study was aimed to determine anxiety and depression state and Vision-
Related Quality of Life (VRQOL) in patients with RP.

Methods : A prospective, non-interventional study enrolled 110 patients (female 65, male 45) with RP and 57 healthy subjects (female 33, male 24). Anxiety and depression were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) , VRQOL with the National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire-25 (VFQ-25). The Mann-Whitney test was used to evaluate differences between the RP patients and healthy subjects for the scores of HADS-A, HADS-D and the mean composite score of the VFQ-25.

Results : There were no significant differences in age (P=0.07) and sex (P=1.0) between the RP patients and healthy subjects. There were significant differences the scores of HADS-A (P=0.02), HADS-D (P<0.001) and the mean composite score of the VFQ-25 (P<0.001) between the RP patients and healthy subjects.

Conclusions : Patients with RP have not only the anxiety but also depression symptom in comparison to healthy Subjects. Furthermore, poor VRQOL may promote the anxiety and the depression. We should be careful about the states of affairs of the RP patients with ophthalmology views.

This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.