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Review
. 2024 Jul 27;16(7):e65503.
doi: 10.7759/cureus.65503. eCollection 2024 Jul.

The Minimally Important Difference (MID) in Visual Acuity That Represents Changes in Patients' Quality of Life

Osama H Ababneh  1 , Yaqin M Alzagareet  2 , Razan M Al-Zoubi  2 , Dania T Ahmad  2 , Rasha W Atieh  2 , Aya E Odeh  2 , Farah A Alkhaled  2 , Saif Aldeen Alryalat  1
Affiliations
Review

The Minimally Important Difference (MID) in Visual Acuity That Represents Changes in Patients' Quality of Life

Osama H Ababneh et al. Cureus. .

Abstract

To assess the minimal change in visual acuity perceived by patients as important in different eye-related interventions. PubMed was utilized to search articles on each of the four major interventions: cataract surgery, keratoplasty, different glaucoma treatments, and refractive eye surgery, each combined with quality of life (QoL) and visual acuity keywords. The search was narrowed to articles between 2000 and 2023. Seventy-four major articles were thus reviewed. Of these, 27 studies reviewed the results of cataract surgery, 20 studies discussed the effect of keratoplasty interventions on the vision-related QoL (VRQoL), most showing that VRQoL improved significantly after keratoplasty, 11 studies investigated the effect of different glaucoma interventions on patients' visual acuity and the QoL, 16 studies reviewed refractive surgery, where they showed an improved QoL in most of the cases, although some of the studies showed a slight superiority of one intervention over the other in the short term. The minimally important difference (MID) perceived in visual acuity depends mainly on the type of surgical intervention (keratoplasty, glaucoma, or refractive surgery), and the impact on QoL on improved visual acuity differs depending on the intervention.

Keywords: cataract; glaucoma; keratoplasty; minimal important difference; refractive surgery; vision-related quality of life; visual acuity; visual function questionnaire.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: All authors have declared that no financial support was received from any organization for the submitted work. Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

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