Glaucoma patients' assessment of their visual function and quality of life.
OBJECTIVE
To determine how glaucoma and glaucoma suspect patients' rating of their vision correlates with Esterman binocular visual field testing and other visual function tests.


METHODS
One hundred ninety-one glaucoma patients and 46 glaucoma suspect patients underwent binocular visual field testing and evaluated their vision using the linear rating scale and time-tradeoff utility tests, the National Eye Institute Visual Functional Questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25), and the Short Form 36 (SF-36) quality-of-life instruments.


RESULTS
The mean Esterman score was 88.2 +/- 17.4 for the glaucoma subjects and 95.2 + 6.9 for glaucoma suspect subjects (maximum score 100). On a scale from 0 (blind) to 100 (ideal), the mean rating of vision for glaucoma patients and glaucoma suspect patients was 74.8 +/- 17.3 and 78.9 +/- 18.5, respectively. The Esterman test correlated moderately with the overall NEI VFQ-25 score (partial correlation coefficient (PCC) = 0.32, P = 0.001), but only weakly with the linear rating scale (PCC = 0.17, P = 0.02), and the time-tradeoff (PCC = 0.14, P = 0.06).


CONCLUSIONS
Utility values that glaucoma and glaucoma suspect patients assign to their vision do not correlate well with Esterman results. A challenge for the future is the design of clinical tests of vision that better correlate with patient perceptions.
Jampel
Henry D
HD
Glaucoma Service, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. hjampel@jhmi.edu
Schwartz
Arthur
A
Pollack
Irvin
I
Abrams
Donald
D
Weiss
Howard
H
Miller
Rhonda
R
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005901:Glaucoma / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009798:Ocular Hypertension / Q000503:physiopathology; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D014792:Visual Acuity / Q000502:physiology*; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology*