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The patient's perspective of his or her own health status as it relates to functioning and well-being is referred to as health-related quality of life. Various generic and ophthalmology-specific survey instruments have been used to gain an understanding of patient-oriented health status in patients with cataract or with glaucoma. Improvement in vision-targeted quality of life has been shown following cataract surgery; however, an improvement in self-perceived overall health status following cataract surgery has not been established. Increasing severity of glaucoma has been shown to be negatively related to vision-targeted quality of life; the relationship between increasing severity of glaucoma and overall self-perceived health status is inconclusive. Integration of the concepts of health-related quality of life into clinical practice will require the development of better measurement instruments that can demonstrate notable outcome advantages for patients.
Dr. B.L. Lee, Kaiser Permanent Medical Center, West Los Angeles, CA, 90034, USA
1.2 Population genetics (Part of: 1 General aspects)