Abstract
This study proceeds to rigorously examine and validate the Low Vision Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (LVQOL) on a Greek population of ophthalmic patients employing Rasch measurement techniques. It is a prospective observational study of 150 cataract patients and 150 patients with other ophthalmic diseases, all followed longitudinally for a period of two months pending surgical or other corrective therapy, after which they were administered the LVQOL for a second time. The original 25-item LVQOL demonstrated high reliability and validity, excellent measurement precision and ordered response category thresholds. A small number of items carry an acceptable level of measurement error while three items had some differential functioning for gender, Age and underlying disorder that did not exceed the established thresholds. This validation study is the first to employ Rasch measurement to examine the validity of the LVQOL and it supports its use with no changes to the original structure. The LVQOL can be employed in a large range of ophthalmic diseases and reliably assess improvements in quality-of-life following phacoemulsification surgery or any other intervention.
Highlights
The Low Vision Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (LVQOL) has been constructed by Wolffsohn et al [1] as an index of functional impairment designed to a vision-specific quality-of-life assessment tool that can reliable be utilized to measure the outcome of low-vision rehabilitation, help with evaluation of current rehabilitation strategy, eventually leading to the improvement of the offered services while securing and enhancing funding within managed care plans
The reliability of the LVQOL is assessed with two measurements, Cronbach alpha’s coefficient equals 0.959, while the more accurate Rasch measurement methodology offers a model reliability upper estimate of 0.99 and a ‘real’ reliability lower estimate of
We examined the difference in LVQOL scores pre- and post-surgery in the cataract patients’ group, assuming that a corrective surgery would carry a positive effect onto the visual functioning of the patient so as to test content validity
Summary
The Low Vision Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (LVQOL) has been constructed by Wolffsohn et al [1] as an index of functional impairment designed to a vision-specific quality-of-life assessment tool that can reliable be utilized to measure the outcome of low-vision rehabilitation, help with evaluation of current rehabilitation strategy, eventually leading to the improvement of the offered services while securing and enhancing funding within managed care plans It has been translated in several languages including Dutch [2], Spanish [3], Chinese [4], Thai [5], Korean [6] and Tamil [7], demonstrating excellent reliability and validity when examined with the classical test theory. Rasch models have become a method of choice for examining the validity of an assessment instrument [11]
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