Functional vision promotes quality of life and socio-emotional functioning in visually impaired children and adolescents.

Abstract

Vision plays a pivotal role in development. Congenital and early acquired visual impairment (VI) may adversely impact several domains related to everyday functioning, such as social and academic inclusion, autonomies and quality of life. In recent years, the inclusion of these dimensions as key targets of the assessment and re-habilitation of paediatric VI has received increasing consensus. This cross-sectional study enrolled patients attending 5 centres specialized in paediatric VI care and aimed to draw an integrated profile of functioning, autonomies, quality of life and emotional-behavioural domains in a large cohort of children with VI. 91 caregivers of as many visually impaired children (age range 6-18, mean age 11.05 years, 47 females) - split into two age groups: 6-10 years; 11-18 years - were enrolled in an on-line survey including three validated questionnaires to assess children's: a) autonomies, via a Patient Reported Outcome Measure (PROM) tool; b) socio-emotional and behavioural problems; c) quality of life (QoL). Clinical and socio-demographic information were also collected. Both age groups showed medium-high average level of autonomy in every investigated area as well as appropriate socio-emotional, behavioral, and QoL scores. Interestingly, adolescents showed lower scores in autonomies compared to the younger age group overall. Autonomy score significantly associated with better QoL and less socio-emotional and behavioural problems, both internalizing and externalizing. Our results highlight the importance of assessing autonomy in the context of paediatric VI re-habilitation as they largely associate and potentially impact on young patients' psychological well-being.