Vision‐Specific Quality of Life and Modes of Refractive Error Correction

Purpose Many studies currently use surveys to assess patients’ reports of vision‐specific quality of life to determine the impact of the disease or the most appropriate mode of treatment. One such instrument, the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI‐VFQ), was developed to assess vision‐related quality of life with respect to emotional well‐being and social function as well as difficulty with tasks and symptoms. We administered the NEI‐VFQ to 218 subjects free of eye disease to see if the survey was sensitive enough to detect differences in three modes of refractive error correction: spectacles, soft contact lenses, and rigid contact lenses. Methods Surveys were administered to 117 rigid contact lens wearers, 51 spectacle wearers, and 50 soft contact lens wearers. Kruskal‐Wallis one‐way analysis of variance was conducted to determine significant differences in each of the subscales. Results The Peripheral Vision subscale score (mean ± SD) was 92.6 ± 15.2 for the spectacle wearers, 100.0 ± 0.0 for the soft contact lens wearers, and 98.3 ± 7.1 for the rigid gas‐permeable contact lens wearers; the spectacle wearers’ Peripheral Vision score was significantly lower than the other two groups (Wilcoxon rank sum, p < 0.003 for both). The spectacle wearers (96.6 ± 9.2) also had a significantly lower Dependency subscale score than the rigid contact lens group (99.7 ± 1.5) (Wilcoxon rank sum, p = 0.001). There were no significant differences between the three groups detected in the mean of any of the other subscale scores. At least 50% of the subjects reported the maximum score for 6 of the 11 subscales. Given our sample size, we have 100% power to detect a difference of 10 points with a SD of 10 at the α = 0.05 level. Conclusion The NEI‐VFQ is not appropriate for detecting significant differences in vision‐related quality of life among spectacle, soft contact lens, and rigid gas‐permeable contact lens wearers, primarily due to maximum ratings by many of the subjects.