Quality Assurance in Cataract and Lens Surgery with Special Consideration of Subjective Patient Reported Outcome...

Results of medical interventions must be documented and evaluated. In studies, this is done with clinical outcomes data (clinician/clinical reported outcome measure, CROM). In the past, less weight has been given to patient surveys with questionnaires (patient reported outcome measure, PROM).

This retrospective study included 104 eyes from 53 patients. Of these, 35 patients had cataract surgery and 15 patients had a refractive lens exchange. The implanted lenses included 62 trifocal IOLs (Asphina trifiocal 839, Zeiss), 34 trifocal toric IOLs (Asphina trifocal toric 939, Zeiss) and 8 bifocal IOLs (Asphina 808, Zeiss) with the same IOL platform. Patients completed a modified questionnaire before surgery and one year after surgery. We made changes to the CatQuest-9SF questionnaire so as to also document side effects.

The effort required by the patients to answer the questionnaire was a burden. Transcribing the data into electronic files so as they could be saved and analyzed was a lot of work for the staff. Among the patients, 88.7% were spectacle-independent in everyday life, and 77.5% for reading. 44.4% had a halo problem. 92% reported the operation as a success. 100% had a prediction error of ≤ ± 0.75 dpt.

There is a high rate of patient satisfaction with the outcome of the intervention. New questionnaires are needed for new IOLs. The Catquest-9SF is from 2009. Accordingly, revisions and new validation is necessary. Beyond that, only automatic data transfer will reduce the amount of work involved in data input.