A Standard for Success in Wearing Contact Lenses

Investigators have used different and often vague criteria in judging the success of their contact lens patients. In order to evaluate and compare the success of patients wearing contact lenses it is necessary to have a standard that defines a successful patient response to contact lenses. This standard will no doubt vary with time and with new developments in the field. This study was designed to test such a standard. The responses of 122 contact lens patients were evaluated four to six months after the initial examination and fitting. Using the criteria of wearing time, comfort, vision, ocular tissue changes, and appearance, we found eighty‐nine patients (72.9% of the sample) to be successful. An accurate standard of success must include all these criteria or the results will be biased in the direction of too great a percentage of success.