The Minimally Important Difference (MID) in Visual Acuity That Represents Changes in Patients' Quality of Life

• Published in: Curēus (Palo Alto, CA) CA), 2024-07, Vol.16 (7), p.e65503
• Main Authors: Ababneh, Osama H, Alzagareet, Yaqin M, Al-Zoubi, Razan M, Ahmad, Dania T, Atieh, Rasha W, Odeh, Aya E, Alkhaled, Farah A, Alryalat, Saif Aldeen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cataracts; Clinical trials; Corneal transplantation; Eye surgery; Glaucoma; Intraocular lenses; Lasers; Ophthalmology; Patient satisfaction; Quality of life; Surgical outcomes; Visual acuity
• ISSN: 2168-8184; 2168-8184
• DOI: 10.7759/cureus.65503

To assess the minimal change in visual acuity perceived by patients as important in different eye-related interventions. PubMed was utilized to search articles on each of the four major interventions: cataract surgery, keratoplasty, different glaucoma treatments, and refractive eye surgery, each combined with quality of life (QoL) and visual acuity keywords. The search was narrowed to articles between 2000 and 2023. Seventy-four major articles were thus reviewed. Of these, 27 studies reviewed the results of cataract surgery, 20 studies discussed the effect of keratoplasty interventions on the vision-related QoL (VRQoL), most showing that VRQoL improved significantly after keratoplasty, 11 studies investigated the effect of different glaucoma interventions on patients' visual acuity and the QoL, 16 studies reviewed refractive surgery, where they showed an improved QoL in most of the cases, although some of the studies showed a slight superiority of one intervention over the other in the short term. The minimally important difference (MID) perceived in visual acuity depends mainly on the type of surgical intervention (keratoplasty, glaucoma, or refractive surgery), and the impact on QoL on improved visual acuity differs depending on the intervention.