Background: Visual impairment significantly affects learners with hearing impairment. Aim: To assess the impact of spectacle wear on the quality of life (QoL) of learners with hearing impairment in Ghana. Setting: Six schools for the deaf in Ghana. Methods: A prospective case-control study design was used to assess the QoL among learners with uncorrected refractive error (URE) using the quality-of-life impact of refractive correction (QIRC) questionnaire before and after the provision of spectacles. Results: A total of 138 learners were enrolled in this study, with 69 learners in both the intervention and control groups, respectively. The mean QIRC score improved significantly for the intervention group: QIRC score before = 43.89 ± 8.96 vs. after = 48.82 ± 6.71 ( P < 0.05 and Cohen's d = 0.62) but not the control group: QIRC score before = 50.79 ± 11.66 and 51.77 ± 10.67 ( P = 0.607). Among the learners provided with spectacles, those who did not comply with spectacle wear had significant differences ( P < 0.05) in mean QIRC scores before and after the intervention. Only visual acuity (VA) and the magnitude of prescription with QIRC scores after intervention had a significant relationship ( P < 0.05). Conclusion: Uncorrected refractive error affected the QoL of learners with hearing impairment, and spectacle correction significantly improved their QoL. Contribution: The use of spectacle lenses, VA and magnitude of prescription affected the QoL scores; however, sex and age did not influence the QoL scores.
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Kwarteng et al. (2024) studied this question.
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