Gain beyond cosmesis: Demonstration of psychosocial and functional gains following successful strabismus surgery using the adult strabismus questionnaire adult strabismus 20

BACKGROUND: Strabismus adversely affects psychosocial and functional aspects; while its correction impacts positively. AIM: The aim was to evaluate the gains in scores: Overall scores (OASs), psychosocial subscale scores (PSSs) and functional subscale scores (FSSs) following successful surgical alignment. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: We evaluated changed scores in the adult strabismus 20 (AS-20) questionnaire, administered before and after successful surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty adults horizontal strabismics, were administered the AS-20, at baseline, and at 6-week and 3-month. Group-wise analysis was carried out based on gender, strabismus type (esotropia [ET] or exotropia [XT]), back-ground and amblyopia. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: We used Wilcoxon, and Mann-Whitney U-tests. Significance was set at P ≤ 0.05. RESULTS: At baseline, there were no significant differences within the groups, except that those with amblyopia significantly scored less than nonamblyopes in OAS (median scores: 53.8 vs. 71.3; P = 0.009) and FSS (56.3 vs. 85.3; P = 0.009). OAS, PSS and FSS showed significant gains at 6-week and 3-month (all Wilcoxon P < 0.001). Compared with males, females showed significantly more gain at 3-month (OAS: 37.9 vs. 28.7; P = 0.02), on account of PSS gain (49.6 vs. 37.5; P = 0.01). The ET performed better than XT only on the FSS at 6-week (28.7 vs. 15.0; P = 0.02). Vis-à-vis the nonamblyopes, the amblyopes showed significantly more benefit at 6-week alone (OAS: 18.7 vs. 28.7; P = 0.04), largely due to gains in PSS. CONCLUSIONS: Successful strabismus surgery has demonstrated significant gains in psychosocial, functional and overall functions. There is some evidence that gains may be more in females; with a trend to better outcomes in ET and amblyopes up to 6-week.