title: Glaucoma patients' assessment of their visual function and quality of life.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Glaucoma Service, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. hjampel@jhmi.edu
authors.forename: Henry D
authors.initials: HD
authors.lastname: Jampel
authors.forename: Arthur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: Irvin
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pollack
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Abrams
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Rhonda
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: 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*