Spectacle use after routine cataract surgery: a study from the Swedish National Cataract Register

To explore patients' obtaining and use of spectacles after routine cataract surgery.

The study included 1329 patients who underwent bilateral surgery with the second eye operated during March 2013 at 38 different clinics in Sweden. Five months after the second-eye surgery, patients completed a five-item questionnaire about their spectacle use preoperatively and postoperatively. The responses were linked to data from the registry on multiple variables including postoperative refraction, age and gender.

Of the 387 patients who were advised by their surgeons to obtain distance spectacles postoperatively, most did so (77.3%, n = 299), while of the 691 patients who were not so advised, most did not obtain spectacles (78.9%, n = 545). Nevertheless, almost 50% of patients with both spherical and cylindrical errors exceeding 1 dioptre (D) did not obtain new distance spectacles postoperatively, while about 25% of patients with bilateral emmetropia (spherical error <0.5 D, cylinder <1 D) obtained new distance spectacles postoperatively.

Patients' choices regarding obtaining and using new spectacles postoperatively are strongly correlated with advice given by the surgeon about the need for distance correction. The large difference between groups who were and were not advised to obtain spectacles for distance correction was only partially reflected in the postoperative refractive errors. Similarly, the patterns of preoperative spectacle use and gender or age differences did not explain this difference.