Patient expectations after cataract surgery depend on preop spectacle use

Patients who wear spectacles expect to need them again after cataract surgery, but those who do not wear them expect to remain spectacle-free postoperatively, a patient survey found. This suggests that those who do not wear glasses preoperatively are at greater risk for postoperative refractive disappointment and complaint, the study authors suggest.

Matthew J. Hawker, MRCOphth, and colleagues at the Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham, England, questioned 189 patients who had attended a preoperative assessment clinic for elective cataract surgery to assess their refractive expectations. Only candidates for first-eye cataract surgery were included in the study. The mean patient age was 74.

Patients were asked to assess, on a scale of 1 to 10, the likelihood that they would need spectacles after surgery. The median patient score was 8 for both distance and near correction. Those who already wore spectacles “thought it significantly more likely that they would need distance glasses postoperatively than those who did not,” with median scores of 9 and 1 respectively, the authors said. Similar differences were expressed regarding near correction.

The importance of not wearing spectacles was rated a mean score of 8 for both distance and near. Men scored the importance of not needed glasses higher than women.

The study is published in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery.