Abstract
Purpose :
Physiology of human visual light sensitivity (VLS) have always perplexed scientists for decades. Literatures shows that VLS has increased in ophthalmic conditions, migraine and traumatic brain injury(TBI). Visual light sensitivity is common after TBI, but some patients do not define their problems as vision-related. Qualitative measures of VLS provide clinicians a better understanding of severity of the disorder and helps for potential therapies. Recent studies suggested that visual light sensitivity threshold disparity among healthy persons. So, the aim of the study was to develop a structured light sensitivity symptom survey to evaluate the presence and severity of VLS in individuals reported head trauma compared to healthy peers.
Methods :
We developed the Light Sensitivity Symptom Survey-11 (LSSS-11), an eleven-question survey. LSSS-11 was administered to 382 participants. Data on the participant’s general and ocular health status were also obtained. Rasch-style method of analysis were used. The mean Rasch analysis scores of normals were compared against individuals who reported head trauma.
Results :
There were 95 participants who reported head trauma in the past and 287 were normals. Participants age range was 15 - 43 years. Rasch analysis was conducted. Four of the eleven questions were deleted for falling outside infit limit (0.7 - 1.3). Item separation was very good 5.18 SD, but the person separation was poor (1.25 SD) indicating the sample was homogenous. Reliability was 0.96 and 0.61 for items and persons respectively. There was a significant difference in the scores for who reported head trauma (M = - 1.01, SD = 1.1) and no head trauma (M= 1.55, SD= 1.29) conditions; t = -3.63, P < 0.01.
Conclusions :
Sensitive and reliable questionnaires are important tool to detect symptoms such as TBI-related light sensitivity. Our results showed that the prevalence of individuals who did experience head trauma was high. Although we did not quantify the severity of head trauma, the visual sequelae cannot be underestimated. Test-rest reliability of this questionnaire is warranted on previously diagnosed patients, not only for detecting TBI-related light sensitivity but also to test the effectivness of the available optical palliatives that being prescribed for patients with photosensitivity.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.