Vision-related Quality of Life among Adult Patients with Visual Impairment at a Tertiary Eye Centre, South-South Nigeria

Aim: To determine the vision-related quality of life (VRQOL) and associated factors among adult patients with visual impairment.

Study Design: It was a cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Ophthalmology, University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria, between August 2015 and March 2016.

Methodology: We consecutively recruited 270 patients aged 18 to 90 years with visual impairment. Presenting visual acuity was assessed to determine the degree of visual impairment, anterior segment and posterior segment examinations as well as refraction were done to establish clinical diagnosis, and an interviewer National Eye Institute’s 25-itemVisual Functioning Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ-25) was administered to estimate the vision-related quality of life (VRQOL). Data was entered into and analyzed with SPSS for Windows version 20. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, standard deviation, and range with 95% confidence interval were calculated and the Chi square (χ2) test for categorical variables and the Student’s t-test for continuous variables were used for test of significance, p value <0.05. ANOVA test, including Post-hoc analysis were used to determine associations between categorical and numerical variables at p value <0.05.

Results: A total of 270 study subjects participated in the study. The study participants included 152(56.3%) males and 118(43.7%) females, with Mean age ± SD was 51.07±16.91 years. Based on the intra study categorization of VRQOL among the study participants, most (85.6%) had good VRQOL. However, the overall mean VRQOL score was remarkably low 41.23±22.87. The proportion of poor VRQOL was 39 (14.4%). The poor VRQOL was significantly associated with blindness 11.60±19.10 (p < 0.001). Age ≥80 years [44.0(95% CI: 27.4-60.7)], rural residents [64.9(95% CI: 58.7-71.1)], no formal education [48.5(95% CI: 33.5-63.5)] and widowhood [48.0(95% CI: 32.4-60.7)] had statistically significant association with low mean VRQOL scores.

Conclusion: Above three-fourth of the participants had good VRQOL, with reference to the categorization of in this study. However, the overall mean VRQOL score was remarkably low. Blindness, older age, rural residency, illiteracy, widowhood, agricultural workers and Ibo ethnicity had a statistically significant association with low vision-related quality of life.