Abstract
Purpose :
Ocular discomfort and pain are one of the most common reasons for ophthalmic consultations. This study aims to assess the age-dependent patient perception of ocular pain and to measure its impact on different health-related quality of life (QoL) dimensions.
Methods :
A prospective, single-center, cohort study was conducted with (N= 285) patients with and without corneal and ocular surface pain who completed the multi-dimensional ocular pain assessment survey (OPAS) at an initial and one follow-up visit. The calculation comprises N=127 patients diagnosed with corneal or ocular surface pain who completed at least one item of the pain scales on the OPAS questionnaire. The OPAS comprises somatic (vision-related), social and psychological dimensions of QoL through six items. The age groups were determined as group 1 which includes patients aged 18-40, group 2 comprises ages 41-60 and group 3 considers age 61-80. For the statistical analysis, IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows was used.
Results :
The mean age of study patients was 48.42 (± 16.19), ranging from 18 to 80 years. The level of eye pain intensity when it is most was 2 (IQR 0-4) (in the past 24 hours) and 3 (IQR 1-5) in the past 2 weeks. The interference of pain on QoL dimension (0-10 scale) among all ages was 5 (IQR 1-8) for reading/computer use, 4 (IQR 1-8) for driving/TV watching, 2 (IQR 0-6) for general activity, 4 (IQR 0.75-7) for mood, 2 (IQR 0-6) for sleep, and 3 (IQR 0-7) for enjoying life/relationship with other people. The interference of pain on all QoL dimensions was statistically significant: reading/computer (R= 0.473; p< 0.001), driving/TV watching (R= 0.459; p< 0.001), general activity (R= 0.461; p< 0.001), mood (R= 0.498; p< 0.001), sleep (R= 0.477; p< 0.001), enjoying life/relationship (R= 0.477, p< 0.001). Furthermore, the effect of age on pain perception increased in patients of groups 2 and 3, as compared to age group 1. The pain interference on the vision-related dimensions of QoL in age groups 2 and 3 was lower compared to age group 1. Age group 1 was most affected by the psychological (mood) and social dimensions (life relation) of QoL.
Conclusions :
The current study demonstrates that ocular pain interferes with all QoL dimensions, particularly with the vision-related QoL dimensions. Older patients report stronger levels of eye pain than younger patients, althouh this has a lower impact on their QoL.
This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.