Change in the Quality-of-Life of People with Keratoconu Original Reearch Article

Purpoe The Collaborative Longitudinal Evaluation of Keratoconu tudy (CLEK) previouly howed that people with keratoconu report ignificantly impaired viion-related quality-of-life (V-QoL), a meaured on the National Eye Intitute Viual Function Quetionnaire (NEI-VFQ), imilar to that of people who have evere macular degeneration. For thi tudy, we evaluated change that occurred in V-QoL over even year of follow-up. Deign In thi propective cohort tudy of 1,166 participant followed up for even year, we etimated change in V-QoL by projecting the lope of a minimum of three report on 11 cale of the NEI-VFQ. Correlation with clinical indicator wa evaluated, and difference were aeed between thoe who had clinically ignificant change in clinical factor and thoe who did not. Logitic regreion wa ued to ae factor aociated with a decline in 10 point or more in a cale core over even year. Reult All cale howed modet decline except ocular pain and mental health. Baeline factor were not aociated with longitudinal change in NEI-VFQ core. A 10-letter decline in high-contrat binocular viual acuity or a 3.00-diopter increae in corneal curvature were aociated with ignificantly larger decline in V-QoL. In multivariate analyi, thee factor alo were found to be aociated with a 10-point decline in NEI-VFQ cale core. Concluion Keratoconu i aociated with ignificantly impaired V-QoL that continue to decline over time. For a ubtantial plurality of patient, thee decline are ignificant.