Results

As expected, photic phenomena such as halos and glare were experienced by 20% of the patients, but 75% of the patients were not bothered by these symptoms. After 6 months there was no patient who could not tolerate these phenomena.

Spectacle independence was high, with only 3% of the female and 7% of the male patients wearing glasses for longer periods of the day. Although all patients expressed the strong wish for a high level of spectacle independence, the preoperative questionnaire revealed that 81% of patients were prepared to wear glasses to read small print and 61% would accept wearing them to do computer work.

When asked for which activity they would not accept wearing spectacles, the highest percentage of patients (64%) mentioned shopping, followed by driving a car (58%). About 42% of men and 35% of women studied said they would accept some limitation of visual quality, such as glare, halos, reduced contrast sensitivity and reduced night vision.

Interestingly, significant more male than female patients would accept a secondary surgical intervention for postoperative refractive improvement, according to the preoperative questionnaire.

Overall patient satisfaction was high or very high for more than 90% of the patients according to the post-op satisfaction score. Most patients (82.2%) would decide to opt for the same surgical intervention with implantation of a multifocal lens again. The percentage of patients who would not choose a multifocal lens again dropped from 3.7% to 2.8% between the two follow-up visits.

Conclusions

Regarding the psychometric tests, the project revealed strong correlations between the personality characteristics and photic phenomena or patient satisfaction.

The results open up the discussion again whether it is possible to develop a condensed pre-op questionnaire concentrating on the above mentioned psychometric patient characteristics.

Dr Frank Goes is the medical director of the Goes Eye Centre Left Bank, which specializes in refractive surgery, excimer laser surgery, phakic IOL surgery, clear lensectomy and surgery of the anterior eyesegment. He can be reached by E-mail: frank@goes.be
or by tel.: +32 3 219 3925 or fax: +32 3 219 6667.

Dr Goes has no financial interests in the subject matter.