Dry eye specific quality of life in veterans using glaucoma drops

Abstract

Purpose To evaluate the frequency of ocular surface symptoms and their potential impact on dry eye specific quality of life (QoL) in patients using versus not using glaucoma medications. Material and methods The study was a single-center, cross-sectional survey of patients seen at the Miami Veterans Affairs (VA) ophthalmology and optometry clinics from June to August, 2010. Patients were invited to complete the Dry Eye Questionnaire 5 (DEQ5) and the Impact of Dry Eye on Everyday Life (IDEEL) at their visit. Of 1348 patients seen in the Miami VA eye clinics during this three-month period, 467 patients completed the DEQ5 and 391 responded to both questionnaires. Outcome measures comprised ocular surface symptoms and their impact on dry eye specific QoL in patients using versus not using glaucoma drops. Results An increasing number of glaucoma drops was significantly associated with an increased percentage of severe dry eye symptoms: no medications, 25% (n = 89/353); 1 or 2 medications, 27% (n = 17/62); 3 or more medications, 40% (n = 21/52); p = 0.03 (Armitage’s test for linear-trend in proportions). There was an association between increasing number of drops and decreasing emotional well-being scores (linear p < 0.001; quadratic p = 0.029). Black patients had higher dry eye symptoms and lower emotional QoL scores compared to white patients at every level of medication use. Conclusion An increasing number of glaucoma medications were associated with an increased frequency of severe dry eye symptoms and decreased emotional QoL. Additionally, dry eye specific emotional QoL was more severely affected in black versus white patients.

Ocular Surface Disease in Patients under Topical Treatment for Glaucoma

“…While some authors report no significant differences compared with control subjects not receiving antiglaucoma eyedrops (20,(25)(26)(27) several others note a difference in OSD prevalence (18,19,22,24), as observed here. Although the latter rates were similar to those of the present study, the slightly higher reported rates could be attributed to differences in demographics, such as ethnicity or sex (black individuals and women show a higher prevalence of OSD (21,36)), treatment duration (23), previous ocular conditions or surgery, and glaucoma severity (18,19). The population examined here comprised Caucasian subjects who had not undergone prior eye surgery besides cataract (>6 months before recruitment), showed a balanced sex distribution, and lacked individuals with advanced or terminal glaucoma stages.…”

“…This total score was recorded for each participant. The impact of dry eye was then assessed categorically as normal (scores of 0-12), mild (scores of [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], moderate (scores of [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], or severe (scores of 33-100), as previously described (17,24).…”

Dry Eye Syndrome in Intensive Care Units: a concept analysis

“…All domains offer a score, which goes from zero (representing total impairment) to 100 (representing no impairment) (20) .…”

Lebensqualität bei Glaukompatienten

“…Es gibt bislang wenige Untersuchungen zur direkten Auswirkung der Tropftherapie bei Glaukompatienten. Gesichert ist der Zu- sammenhang zwischen der Anzahl an Glaukommedikation mit Beschwerden durch trockenes Auge und emotionaler Lebensqualität [30]. Außerdem konnte eine gute Prädiktion der Oberflächenstörung bei Glaukompatienten durch den GQL-15-Score getroffen werden [31].…”