Defining the content of patient questionnaires: Reasons for seeking laser in situ keratomileusis for myopia

Purpose: To determine the relative importance of patients' motives for having laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) for myopia. Setting: The Corneal Diseases and Excimer Laser Research Unit, University of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee, Scotland. Methods: Twenty-one cards printed with potential reasons for having LASIK and 3 blank cards for respondents to include additional motives were posted to 71 patients who had myopic LASIK. The cards were ranked by each respondent in order of personal importance and returned for analysis. Results: The response rate was 77.5%. The mean age of the 19 male and 37 female respondents was 41.7 years +/- 9.3 (SD) and the mean preoperative spherical equivalent, -9.26 +/- 4.58 diopters. The primary reasons for seeking treatment (percentage of respondents ranking topic within the top 5) were improvement of unaided social vision (69.1%), intolerance to spectacles/contact lenses (65.5%), and freedom from spectacles/contact lenses (61.8%). Almost 70% of respondents ranked 1 of these reasons as the most important. General inconvenience of spectacles/contact lenses and the desire to pursue sports and leisure activities also ranked high (52.7% and 36.4%, respectively). Conclusions: Consistent with previous work, better unaided vision, combined with the inconvenience of or intolerance to spectacles or contact lenses, provided the main incentives to have LASIK for myopia, while improved cosmesis was relatively unimportant (29.1%). The results of this study will allow the design of satisfaction questionnaires that are better directed toward establishing satisfaction of specific, relevant functional and psychological aspects of refractive surgery that are important to patients.