Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 6, 2026
09:22
Establishing a Porcine Ex Vivo Cornea Model for Studying Drug Treatments against Bacterial Keratitis
Published on: May 12, 2020
Patient-Reported Outcomes in Infectious Keratitis: A Systematic Review
James Smith1, Christian P Pappas1,2, Maria Cabrera-Aguas1,2
1Save Sight Institute, Specialty of Clinical Ophthalmology and Eye Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; and.
Cornea
|July 20, 2026
Summary
Infectious keratitis significantly impacts patients' quality of life (QoL). While various patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) assess this, most require further validation for infectious keratitis.
Area of Science:
- Ophthalmology
- Patient-Reported Outcomes
- Quality of Life Research
Background:
- Infectious keratitis poses a significant threat to patient quality of life (QoL).
- Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are crucial for understanding subjective patient experiences in healthcare.
- Assessing QoL in infectious keratitis patients requires validated measurement tools.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically review and evaluate the quality and content of PROM tools used for infectious keratitis.
- To identify existing PROMs applied to assess QoL in patients with infectious keratitis.
Main Methods:
- A comprehensive literature search was conducted across multiple databases (PubMed, MEDLINE OVID, Embase OVID, Cochrane, Scopus, Web of Science, PsycINFO) in October 2023.
- Included studies featured validated PROMs assessing QoL in infectious keratitis patients, published in English.
- Excluded studies used non-validated PROMs or did not explicitly define corneal pathologies. Psychometric quality, validity, and risk of bias were assessed.
Main Results:
- Eight studies utilized eight distinct PROMs (1 generic, 7 ophthalmic but not keratitis-specific).
- Patients with infectious keratitis reported impaired QoL across multiple domains, most notably in vision and visual function.
- Other affected domains included dependence, mobility, and mental/emotional state. Only 13% of studies reported psychometric validation of the PROMs used.
Conclusions:
- Infectious keratitis negatively impacts patient QoL across various domains.
- A range of PROMs have been employed to measure QoL in keratitis patients.
- Most PROMs currently used for infectious keratitis require further validation.
