Impact of Refractive Error Correction on Vision Related Quality of Life in School-Aged Children-A Prospective Interventional Study

Aim: To compare the vision related quality of life before and after prescription of refractive glasses in school-aged children. Design: A prospective, comparative, and hospital-based interventional study was conducted at the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology, PGIMS, Rohtak between May 2021-May 2022. It involved assessment of vision-related quality of life (VRQoL) in 200 school-going children of the 5-16 age group, then comparing outcomes in children with URE versus those corrected with eyeglasses. Those with significantly low visual acuity (≤ 6/9) on Snellen’s were enrolled in the study after obtaining written informed consent from parents. The Modified SREEQ was used to assess VRQoL. Various parameters of comparison included age, gender, demography, education, and improvement in VRQoL within individual study groups over time. Comparison was done before and after using prescription refractive eyeglasses with a follow-up period of 3 months. Results: The correction amongst hypermetropes, 40 out of total 200 students (20%), correction among myopes (153 of 200 students), correction amongst students with astigmatism (7 out of 200 students) resulted in changing categories from mild/moderate/severe visual impairment to normal category of visual acuity i.e., 6/6 on immediate correction with refractive glasses prescribed to them post refraction. Students with astigmatism showed an improvement in symptoms like distorted images post-refractive correction at 3 months. Thus, proving a positive role of refractive eyeglasses in reducing the burden of refractive errors in our study population and improving the visual outcome. Conclusion: VRQoL was better in students after they got their refractive errors corrected with prescription eyeglasses at 3 months as compared to their QoL evaluated at their first visit to our centre with URE. This study focused on having a holistic approach towards improvement in QoL by taking into consideration the academic, psychological, cost-effectiveness aspects of VRQoL among students in the age group 5-16 years old.