Design of the low vision quality-of-life questionnaire (LVQOL) and measuring the outcome of low-vision rehabilitation☆
Section snippets
Methods
The literature was reviewed to collect all the subjective questionnaires previously designed for assessing quality of life (Table 1). The resulting questions were merged, so no items were repeated. The items were then assessed by a multidisciplinary team of low-vision rehabilitation staff (including ophthalmologists, optometrists, orthoptists, occupational therapists, welfare officers, audiologists, and those with low vision) for relevance: questions not relevant to the majority of patients
Selection of appropriate items for the lvqol
To select the most appropriate items for the LVQOL from the initial pool of questions, the following exclusion criteria were implemented:
Discussion
There is a need for a quality-of-life assessment tool for clinical low-vision practice to gain a better understanding of patients’ needs and goals and whether they have been met by rehabilitation. Excluding items that had a low or high endorsement, a poor internal consistency, and that were not reliable allowed the pool of 74 items, selected by a multidisciplinary team of rehabilitation professionals and patients with low vision, to be reduced to a 25-item LVQOL. Implementation of the LVQOL
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This projected was funded by a grant from the Victorian College of Optometry, Victoria, Australia, and Vision Australia Foundation, Australia.