Quality of Life and Psychological Aspects in Patients with Visual Impairment Secondary to Uveitis: A Clinical Study in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Brazil

ABSTRACT

Purpose: To evaluate the quality of life in individuals with bilateral visual impairment secondary to uveitis and its association with sociodemographic, clinical and psychosocial aspects.

Methods: Data were collected through a structured interviews, using four forms; the SF-12v2, HADS, NEI-VFQ-25 and a specific form developed to collect clinical and sociodemographic data.

Results: 80 patients were included with a mean age of 42.8 years; 63.8% female; 57.5% with permanent reduction of familiar income. The average number of medical visits was 15.2 ±10.7/year. In terms of health-related quality of life (HRQol), the mean of VFQ-25 score was 36.6 ± 15.1 and the mean of SF-12 physical and mental components scores were 43.3 ± 9.9 and 44.9 ± 12.2. Anxiety and depression symptoms were found in 65.1% and 32.5% of patients, respectively.

Conclusions: Visual impairment has impact on several scales of HRQoL leading to productivity loss and consumption of health resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Anxiety
• depression
• quality of life
• uveitis
• visual impairment

Acknowledgments

Dr. David Cordeiro Sousa for the review and improvements on this manuscript.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be access on the publisher’s website.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.