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Does encouragement boost visual acuity testing results?
1Kettering General Hospital NHS Trust.
Aim:
To investigate the hypothesis: 'Patients who receive encouragement during visual acuity testing achieve better scores than patients who receive no encouragement'.
Method:
Fifty patients were randomly selected from general eye clinics with five exclusions. A quasi-experimental, non-equivalent comparison before/after design was used to consider the way patients' vision is tested using the Snellen visual acuity chart in the eye department at Kettering General Hospital.
Results:
The results were significant (t = 5.78 df=49 p < 0.001) and supported the initial hypothesis that 'patients who receive encouragement during visual acuity testing achieve better scores than patients who receive no encouragement'.
Conclusion:
The results of the study suggest that the subjects did get better visual acuity scores when encouragement was used and recommendations were made to change the clinic protocol.
