Living Successfully With Chronic Eye Diseases

Summary

The need for low vision services (LVS) will increase exponentially over the coming years due to the anticipated and exponential growth in the ageing population in Singapore and a rise in chronic non-communicable eye diseases. Finding the best evidenced-based management for chronic eye diseases contributing to low vision (LV) is therefore crucial. Improving patient responsibility is the key to managing LV effectively.1 This means achieving optimum self management (SM).2 However, there are currently no LV SM programs in Singapore and none has been evaluated using a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design, the gold standard methods to evaluate health interventions.

The aims of this study are to assess the effectiveness of the 'Living Successfully with Low Vision (LSLV)' program in improving quality of life (QoL) in 160 elderly people with LV attending the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) LV clinic. Of these, 80 will be randomly allocated to receive the LSLV 4-week SM program while the remaining 80 will receive the usual care. Comparisons will be made to determine the efficacy of the LSLV program. QoL, self-efficacy, emotional well being, and vision-specific distress will be assessed 2 weeks after training, and at six months and 12 months post intervention.

This study will be the first evidenced-based RCT investigating the effectiveness of a novel vision-specific self-management strategy to improve QoL. It will also adopt a longitudinal design where the effectiveness of these interventions will be evaluated at 12 months-the first follow-up assessment of that duration at both national and international levels. Furthermore this will be the first study to characterize and profile the patients where the effect of the program did not demonstrate an improvement in both primary and secondary outcomes six months after its completion. The future clinical implications of this study include the potential to implement a successful model of LV rehabilitation in other tertiary centres around the country.

Conditions

• Chronic Diseases
• Low Vision
• Diabetic Retinopathy
• Glaucoma
• Age-related Macular Degeneration

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Low Vision Self-Management Program

The program has been describe above.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ministry of Health, Singapore

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• University of Melbourne

  collaborator OTHER

• Singapore National Eye Centre

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Curtin University

  collaborator OTHER

• Singapore Eye Research Institute

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Peggy PC Chiang, PhD · Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI)

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

SINGLE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

45 Years

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2013-01-31

Primary Completion

2014-01-31

Completion

2015-01-31

Countries

• Singapore

Study Locations