Abstract
Purpose :
There are limited data on patients’ perceptions about their dry eye disease (DED) and whether a patient’s language has any effect on these perceptions. Herein, we compared patients’ perceptions about DED between Spanish- and English-speaking patients.
Methods :
This cross-sectional study consisted of 129 DED patients in San Antonio, Texas. Patients with DED were asked to complete a questionnaire evaluating their perceptions about DED, including patients’ satisfaction with their understanding of DED, their opinion on the easiness of following doctors’ advice, their opinion on effectiveness of their DED treatment, their satisfaction with the eye care for DED, and their general outlook on their disease. English and Spanish versions of the questionnaire were used for English- and Spanish-speaking patients, respectively. All patients also had a comprehensive ocular surface examination.
Results :
We included 100 women and 29 men, with an average age of 59.0±15.1 years. There were 34 Spanish-speaking patients and 95 English-speaking or bilingual patients. The average Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) score was 53.2±20.6. Of all patients, 56% were satisfied with their understanding of DED, 79% found it easy to follow doctors’ advice in DED management, 59% found their DED treatment helpful, 70% were satisfied with the DED care, and 57% expressed an optimistic outlook toward their DED. Spanish-speaking patients were less likely to report a good understanding of DED compared to English-speaking patients (38.2% vs 62.1% respectively, p=0.02). There were no significant differences in other DED perceptions between these two groups.
Conclusions :
Spanish-speaking patients reported lower understanding of their DED. Measures should be taken to enhance patients’ perceptions about their ophthalmic diseases regardless of their language.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.