Measuring outcomes of vision rehabilitation with the Veterans Affairs Low Vision Visual Functioning Questionnaire.

Purpose: To evaluate the sensitivity to change, in patients who undergo vision rehabilitation, of the Veteran Affairs (VA) Low Vision Visual Functioning Questionnaire (LV VFQ-48), which was designed to measure the difficulty visually impaired persons have in performing daily activities and to evaluate vision rehabilitation outcomes.

Methods: Before and after rehabilitation, the VA LV VFQ-48 was administered by telephone interview to subjects from five sites in the VA and private sector. Visual acuity of these subjects ranged from near normal to total blindness.

Use of Rasch person-item map in exploratory data analysis: a clinical perspective.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) includes visual impairment in the 10 most prevalent causes of disability in America. As rehabilitation programs have the potential to restore independence and improve the quality of life for affected persons, NIH research priorities include evaluating their effectiveness. This paper demonstrates a clinical perspective on the use of the Rasch person-item map to evaluate the range and precision of a new vision function questionnaire in early analysis (prior to full sample).

Psychometric properties of the Veterans Affairs Low-Vision Visual Functioning Questionnaire.

Purpose: To describe psychometric properties of a self-report questionnaire, the Veterans Affairs (VA) Low-Vision Visual Functioning Questionnaire (LV VFQ-48), which was designed to measure the difficulty visually impaired persons have performing daily activities and to evaluate low-vision outcomes.

Methods: The VA LV VFQ-48 was administered by telephone interview to subjects with visual acuity ranging from near normal to total blindness at five sites in the VA and private sector. Rasch analysis with the Andrich rating scale model was applied to difficulty ratings from 367 subjects, to evaluate measurement properties of the instrument.