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Published on: February 11, 2014
[Assessing vision-related quality of life in children with bilateral congenital cataracts]
Marcia Caires Bestilleiro Lopes1, Solange Rios Salomão, Adriana Berezovsky
1Departamento de Oftalmologia, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil. marciablopes@gmail.com
Insights
Children with bilateral congenital cataracts experience significantly reduced vision-related quality of life, particularly in daily competence. The Children's Visual Function Questionnaire (CVFQ) effectively measures this impact.
Area of Science:
- Ophthalmology
- Pediatrics
- Quality of Life Research
Context:
- Bilateral congenital cataracts significantly impact a child's development and daily functioning.
- Assessing vision-related quality of life (VRQoL) is crucial for comprehensive pediatric eye care.
Purpose:
- To evaluate the VRQoL in children diagnosed with bilateral congenital cataracts.
- To utilize the Children's Visual Function Questionnaire (CVFQ) for this assessment.
Summary:
- Children with bilateral congenital cataracts exhibited lower scores across all CVFQ subscales compared to controls.
- The 'competence' subscale and overall composite score were significantly lower in children with cataracts, correlating with visual impairment severity.
Impact:
- The CVFQ is a valuable tool for quantifying the impact of visual impairment on a child's quality of life.
- Findings underscore the need to integrate VRQoL assessments into routine clinical evaluations for pediatric cataracts.
Purpose:
To assess vision-related quality of life in children with bilateral congenital cataracts, using the recently developed Children's Visual Function Questionnaire (CVFQ).
Methods:
CVFQ has two presentations, one for children under 3 years of age and the other for older children, and is divided in six subscales--general health; general vision; competence; personality; family impact and treatment. From those, a composite score can also be calculated. The CVFQ was applied in the hospital setting to parents or other caretakers by personal interview. The subscale scores were compared for control group (n=32--normal vision) versus congenital cataract group (n=16 no visual impairment, n=10--mild visual impairment and n=11--severe visual impairment). For analysis, t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed.
Results:
All quality of life subscales presented low scores for children with bilateral congenital cataracts. Congenital bilateral cataract scores were lower than those of the control group for all subscales. Competence subscale in the experimental group was significantly lower in the comparison with visual impairment severity (F=5.1, p=0.01; Tukey test p<0.01) as well as the composite score (F=5.4, p=0.01; Tukey test p=0.01/0.05).
Conclusions:
Bilateral congenital cataracts influence vision-related quality of life of children as confirmed by low scores in all subscales assessed by the CVFQ with emphasis on the competence subscale. This instrument should be incorporated in the clinical assessment of children with bilateral cataracts as a measure of the impact of visual impairment in their quality of life.
