Surgical treatment of keratectasia, in addition to its cessation, is aimed at increasing the acuity and quality of vision. This can also significantly affect patient’s quality of life. The criteria for assessing the quality of life does not always consider the balance between quantitative indicators and subjective perception, which can depend on the psychological aspect of self-esteem.
Purpose — to perform comparative assessment of the quality of life of patients with keratoconus (KK) before and after intrastromal keratoplasty by a newly developed method using an original questionnaire.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
The study included 20 patients (14 men and 6 women, with mean age of 33 years, from 21 to 45 years old; 20 eyes) diagnosed with degree II—IV KK, with non-corrected visual acuity of 0.3 or lower. The original questionnaire with three blocks of questions about subjective assessment of the severity of discomfort associated with the disease, expectations of treatment results and its effectiveness was used to study the quality of life of KK patients who underwent surgery. The evaluation method used a five-point grading scale.
RESULTS
Despite the inability to objectively assess the result of treatment, patients can generally note the trend for improvement. Especially significant are the increase of visual acuity, improvement of general health, feeling of comfort and more optimistic view of one’s future. Comparison of the expectations and treatment results has shown that some therapeutic effects are overestimated by the patients, while some others are underestimated. A priori, they overvalue the effects of treatment (actions associated with visual tasks — reading, writing), but at the same time undervalue the characteristics of overall personal and emotional state (except for spatial safety and comfort), i.e. the characteristics that determine the quality of life.
CONCLUSION
The aims of writing a valid and reliable questionnaire have been achieved partially, and its further development requires comparison of the obtained results with psychodiagnostic data, which would reveal the nature of psychological factors that form the quality of life perception in patients with various vision disorders.
