title: Measuring the impact of cataract surgery on generic and vision-specific quality of life.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide and cause visual impairment for millions of adults in the United States. We compared the sensitivity of a vision-specific health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measure to that of multiple generic measures of HRQOL before and at 2 time points after cataract surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants completed 1 vision-specific and 5 generic quality of life measures before cataract surgery, and again 1 and 6 months after surgery. Random effects modeling was used to measure changes over the three assessment points.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The NEI-VFQ25 total score and all 11 subscales showed significant improvements during the first interval (baseline and 1 month). During the second interval (1-6 months post-surgery), significant improvements were observed on the total score and 5 of 11 NEI-VFQ25 subscales. There were significant increases in HRQOL during the first interval on some preference-based generic HRQOL measures, though changes during the second interval were mostly non-significant. None of the SF-36v2™ or SF6D scales changed significantly between any of the assessment periods.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The NEI-VFQ25 was sensitive to changes in vision-specific domains of QOL. Some preference-based generic HRQOL measures were also sensitive to change and showed convergence with the NEI-VFQ25, but the effects were small. The SF-36v2™ and SF-6D did not change in a similar manner, possibly reflecting a lack of vision-related content. Studies seeking to document both the vision-specific and generic HRQOL improvements of cataract surgery should consider these results when selecting measures.
authors.affiliation: UCSD Health Services Research Center, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr. #0994, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. egroessl@ucsd.edu
authors.forename: Erik J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Groessl
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Marisa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sklar
authors.forename: Steven R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Tally
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kaplan
authors.forename: Theodore G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Ganiats
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002386:Cataract / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D002387:Cataract Extraction; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011788:Quality of Life; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014481:United States; D014785:Vision, Ocular; D014792:Visual Acuity