The impact of glaucoma on the quality of life of patients in Norway

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Abstract
Purpose: To elucidate the relationship between the visual difficulties reported by patients treated for glaucoma and their objective functional damage, and to evaluate the reliability of the patient responses. Methods: Questionnaires concerning quality of life filled in at home by 589 patients treated for chronic open angle glaucoma were correlated to corresponding questionnaires returned from their ophthalmologists. Results: Few of our patients had a visual field damage judged to be of functional significance. There was a weak to moderate association between both visual field defects and decreased visual acuity and self‐reported visual difficulties. A high proportion of the patients had normal binocular visual field and a stable disease, raising the suspicion that some of them were treated for ocular hypertension. The agreement between the responses from the patients and the ophthalmologists concerning the topical treatment was good, regarding treatment duration and other diseases of the patients the agreement was moderate. Conclusion: The association between subjective visual disability and presence of visual field defects was weak to moderate in our patients treated for glaucoma, and this association was further weakened by adjusting for visual acuity. Some patients might be treated unnecessarily, and a favourable prognosis might be given to most of them. The reliability of the patients in general was good.