title: Population-based assessment of vision-related quality of life in corneal disease: results from the CORE study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the impact of corneal disease on vision-related quality of life (VR-QoL) in a rural North Indian population.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional, population-based study.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Corneal Opacity Rural Epidemiological (CORE) study included 12 899 participants from 25 randomly selected clusters of rural Gurgaon, Haryana, India, with the primary objective of determining the prevalence of corneal disease in the general population during July 2011 to January 2013. VR-QoL was assessed through Indian Vision Function questionnaire (IND-VFQ-33) in adult participants (aged ≥18 years) detected with corneal opacity and equal number of healthy controls (no ocular pathology with visual acuity of 6/6 binocularly) selected from the same clusters. Scores of the three subscales of IND-VFQ-33 (vision-specific mobility, psychosocial impact and visual symptoms) were computed, analysed and compared separately across various groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, 12 113 participants of all ages underwent detailed ophthalmic examination and VR-QoL was assessed in 435 cases with corneal disease and 435 controls without any ophthalmic disease. The diseased population had significantly higher scores and hence poorer VR-QoL across all three domains of vision function (scores of 28 vs 22; 6 vs 5 and 14 vs 9, respectively; p<0.0001) and the scores were inversely related with the level of visual impairment in patients with corneal disease. Patients with unilateral corneal disease also had poorer VR-QoL scores as compared with healthy controls (p<0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  VR-QoL is impaired in patients with corneal disease, more so in patients with corneal blindness. This is the first population-based study to document VR-QoL through IND-VFQ-33 in the Indian population with corneal disease.
authors.affiliation: Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Praveen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vashist
authors.affiliation: Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Noopur
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Radhika
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tandon
authors.affiliation: Centre for Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Sanjeev K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Sadanand
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dwivedi
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Kalaivani
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mani
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001766:Blindness / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003316:Corneal Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D016021:Epidemiologic Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009790:Occupations; D015995:Prevalence; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D015354:Vision, Low / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D014785:Vision, Ocular; D019987:Persons with Visual Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cornea; Epidemiology; Public health