Original ArticlePatients’ Views of Visual Field Testing and Priorities for Research Development and Translation into Practice
Section snippets
Study Design
This study was an online questionnaire with purposive sampling focused on people with glaucoma or at risk of glaucoma who regularly undergo visual field tests in Australia. To obtain input from people from across Australia attending a variety of clinical practices, we recruited our survey participants primarily via online newsletters and social media from Glaucoma Australia,31 a support group for people with glaucoma in Australia that provides education, support, and advocacy to people with
Demographics
The median age of the included survey respondents was 66 years (range, 30–86 years; IQR, 60–72 years). Thirty-six respondents (24%) were men and 116 respondents (76%) were women. At the time of responding to the survey, 93% of participants reported having a diagnosis of glaucoma (number of years with glaucoma, 10 [range, 1–61 years; IQR, 4–20 years]) and 7% reported being at risk of glaucoma developing. Most participants (79%) regularly underwent visual field tests in a community ophthalmology
Discussion
Automated perimetry has been part of mainstream clinical practice for decades, and yet evidence directly from health care consumers regarding their experience and opinions of visual field testing is limited. Importantly, our study solicited this information, anonymously and at a distance from any specific clinical or patient environment. Previous research has explored participants, experiences of visual field assessment8,26,27; however, the novel focus of our study was to enquire directly about
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Glaucoma Australia for their support in advertising and recruiting participants for this survey, and the anonymous reviewers and editorial board members for their suggestions on improving this paper.
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Supplemental material available at www.ophthalmologyglaucoma.org.
Disclosure(s):
All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE disclosures form.
The author(s) have made the following disclosure(s): A.T.: Consultant – CenterVue SpA; Financial support – Haag-Streit AG, Heidelberg Engineering GmBH
A.M.M.: Consultant – CenterVue SpA; Financial support – Haag-Streit AG, Heidelberg Engineering GmBH
Supported by the Melbourne Research Scholarship (V.M.); and College of Optometrists Research Fellowship (J.D.).
HUMAN SUBJECTS: Human subjects were included in this study. The human ethics committees at the University of Melbourne approved the study. All research adhered to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. All participants provided informed consent.
No animal subjects were included in this study.
Author Contributions:
Conception and design: Muthusamy, Turpin, Nguyen, Denniss, McKendrick
Analysis and interpretation: Muthusamy, Turpin, Nguyen, Denniss, McKendrick
Data collection: Muthusamy, McKendrick
Obtained funding: N/A; Study was performed as part of regular employment duties at the University of Melbourne, Australia. No additional funding was provided.
Overall responsibility: Muthusamy, Turpin, Nguyen, Denniss, McKendrick