Measurement of quality of life for people with diabetic retinopathy impairment

Abstract

Vision impairment associated with diabetic retinopathy (DR) impacts on an individual’s functioning, psychosocial, physical and financial wellbeing. However, clinical measures of visual functioning are not able to capture the broad effects of vision impairment as experienced by the individual. For this reason, self-reported health-related quality of life (QoL) has become an important outcome measure in ophthalmic practice. While many health-related QoL questionnaires have been developed to measure this concept, few have adequate psychometric properties. This paper discusses the assessment of vision-specific QoL for patients with DR and the associations between DR and QoL. The impact of ophthalmic interventions and low-vision rehabilitation for people with DR are explored. To fully capture the effectiveness of such interventions, a valid, reliable, culturally appropriate, vision-specific instrument should be used.

Keywords::

• diabetic retinopathy
• low-vision rehabilitation
• measurement
• vision-related quality of life

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The Impact of Vision Impairment (IVI) discussed in this manuscript was developed by the Centre for Eye Research, Victoria, Australia. The Centre receives no direct financial returns from the distribution of the IVI. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.