Presbyopic correction use and its impact on quality of vision symptoms

AIM: To assess real-world adoption of presbyopic correction and its impact on quality of vision. METHOD: The use of visual corrections by 529 sequential patients (aged 36 years to 85 years, 50.4% female) attending 4 optometric practices in diverse areas across London were surveyed by interview and completed the quality of vision (QoV) questionnaire to evaluate visual symptoms. RESULTS: Over half of the population (54.7%) managed without glasses at least some of the time, while between 30 and 40% wore distance, reading and progressive spectacles with those using Progressive Addition Lenses wearing them over 80% of the time, while those wearing reading spectacles only approximately 25% of the time. Age, sex and driving frequency had no effect of QoV (p > 0.05), whereas the distance of the task significantly impacted QoV (p < 0.01). In all QoV metrics, regardless of the far, intermediate or near blur assessment, QoV was rated higher by patients whose main tasks were far focused (n = 231, 43.9%), than those who principally conduct intermediate tasks (n = 165, 31.4%) and worse still for those whose main tasks were near (n = 130, 24.7%), regardless of the form of correction. CONCLUSION: Majority of tasks are in the distance and these had a higher QoV than intermediate tasks with near focused tasks being even worse. It is important to discuss with patients the principal distance of the tasks they generally perform and the forms of presbyopic correction used from the outset.