Current visual function questionnaires fail to fully capture patient goals
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INDIANAPOLIS — Gaps that exist in current visual function questionnaires should be improved before incorporation into the clinical intake process, according to a poster presented at Academy 2024.
“We are trying to find more suitable questionnaires that we can use clinically and that do not have a high administration burden, but could help potentially influence or provide the clinician information prior to examination to guide some of the adaptations and interventions,” Phillippa Dorling, BS, a student at New England College of Optometry, told Healio.
To evaluate whether the Activity Inventory, National Eye Institute Visual Function-25 and Veterans Affairs Low-Vision Visual Functioning questionnaires could be used as screening intake tools in practice, Dorling and colleagues recruited 100 patients (mean age, 62.3 years; 53% women) previously scheduled for a low vision exam.
Participants completed the questionnaires by phone, reporting the importance and difficulty of specific clinical goals, which were filtered into seven functional categories: reading, driving, social interaction, hobby, technology, activities of daily living and mobility.
According to results, there was a mean 5.1 clinical goals per participant, the most popular of which was reading (65%), followed by mobility (30%), technology (29%) and driving (24%). Notably, 56% of participants identified a clinical goal that was not addressed on any of the questionnaires, which included glare sensitivity (43%), community resources (19%), telescopes (13%), lighting (8%), corrective lenses (7%) and emotional wellbeing (2%).
The researchers also found that participants with worse visual acuity identified significantly more clinical goals.
“I was surprised that all of our questionnaires rated so highly across the board for all of our goal categories,” Dorling said. “But when we looked at the data, we saw that people were more likely to rate everything in the questionnaire, so it didn’t necessarily correlate as well clinically.”
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Dorling P, et al. Are visual function questionnaires suitable for use as clinical intake questionnaires? Presented at: Academy 2024; Nov. 6-9; Indianapolis.
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