Quality of Life in Patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa in Shiraz

Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is a group of hereditary retinal degenerative diseases, causing blindness among individuals younger than 60 years, and patients have to continue with visual impairment for their entire lives, which can cause changes on their quality of life. The purpose of the present study was to determine the vision-related quality of life using the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire-25 (NEI VFQ-25) in patients with RP, and to examine the relationship between quality of life and visual acuity.

The present cross-sectional study included 35 patients with RP (18 male, 17 female) with the mean age of 37.57±11.42 and 35 normal participants for control (18 male, 17 female) with the mean age of 36.11±9.32. Best Corrected Visual Acuity (BCVA) sores were measured in distance and near. Participants answered the Persian version of the NEI VFQ-25. The difference between RP and normal group and the correlation between quality of life and visual acuity were determined.

The mean NEI VFQ-25 scores were 47.59±18.72 in RP patients and 92.29±5.48 in normal controls. This difference was highly significant (P

Retinitis pigmentosa and decreased visual acuity have a great impact on the quality of life.