Deign of the low viion quality-of-life quetionnaire (LVQOL) and meauring the outcome of low-viion rehabilitation

PURPOE: To deign and validate a viion-pecific quality-of-life aement tool to be ued in a clinical etting to evaluate low-viion rehabilitation trategy and management. METHOD: Previou viion-related quetionnaire were aeed by low-viion rehabilitation profeional and patient for relevance and coverage. The 74 item elected were preteted to enure correct interpretation. One hundred and fifty patient with low viion completed the choen quetion on four occaion to allow the election of the mot appropriate item. The viion-pecific quality of life of patient with low viion wa compared with that of 70 age-matched and gender-matched patient with normal viion and before and after low-viion rehabilitation in 278 patient. REULT: Item that were unreliable, internally inconitent, redundant, or not relevant were excluded, reulting in the 25-item Low Viion Quality-of-Life Quetionnaire (LVQOL). Completion of the LVQOL reult in a ummed core between 0 (a low quality of life) and 125 (a high quality of life). The LVQOL ha a high internal conitency (α = 0.88) and good reliability (0.72). The average LVQOL core for a population with low viion (60.9 ± 25.1) wa ignificantly lower than the average core of thoe with normal viion (100.3 ± 20.8). Rehabilitation improved the LVQOL core of thoe with low viion by an average of 6.8 ± 15.6 (17%). CONCLUION: The LVQOL wa hown to be an internally conitent, reliable, and fat method for meauring the viion-pecific quality of life of the viually impaired in a clinical etting. It i able to quantify the quality of life of thoe with low viion and i ueful in determining the effect of low-viion rehabilitation.