Dry Eye Symptoms, Patient-Reported Visual Functioning, and Health Anxiety Influencing Patient Satisfaction After Cataract Surgery

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To evaluate how patient satisfaction after cataract surgery is associated with postoperative visual acuity, visual functioning, dry eye signs and symptoms, health anxiety, and depressive symptoms.

Patients and methods: Fifty-four patients (mean age: 68.02 years) were assessed 2 months after uneventful phacoemulsification; 27 were unsatisfied with their postoperative results and 27 were satisfied. They completed the following questionnaires: Visual Function Index-14 (VF-14), Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI), Shortened Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI), and Shortened Beck Depression Inventory. Testing included logarithm of the Minimum Angle of Resolution (logMAR) uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA) and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), dry eye tests (tear meniscus height and depth measured by spectral optical coherence tomography, tear film break-up time (TBUT), ocular surface staining, Schirmer 1 test, and meibomian gland dysfunction grading).

Results: Postoperative UCVA, BCVA, and the dry eye parameters – except TBUT – showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups (p > 0.130). However, the VF-14 scores, the OSDI scores, and the SHAI scores were significantly worse in the unsatisfied patient group (p < 0.002). No significant correlations were found between visual acuity measures and visual functioning (r < 0.170, p > 0.05). However, the VF-14 scores correlated with the OSDI scores (r = −0.436, p < 0.01) and the OSDI scores correlated with the SHAI scores (r = 0.333, p < 0.05). Multiple logistic regression revealed an adjusted association between patient satisfaction and dry eye symptoms (odds ratio = 1.46, 95% CI = 1.02–2.09, p = 0.038) and visual functioning (odds ratio = 0.78, 95% CI = 0.60–1.0, p = 0.048).

Conclusions: Our results suggest that patient-reported visual functioning, dry eye symptoms, and health anxiety are more closely associated with patients’ postoperative satisfaction than with the objective clinical measures of visual acuity or the signs of dry eye.

KEYWORDS:

• Cataract surgery
• dry eye disease
• depressive symptoms
• health anxiety
• patients’ satisfaction

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Edit Czeglédi (Institute of Behavioural Sciences, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary) for her assistance in statistical analysis.

Funding

None of the authors has received financial support or has a proprietary or financial interest in any of the material or instruments mentioned in this article.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

None of the authors has received financial support or has a proprietary or financial interest in any of the material or instruments mentioned in this article.