Psychosocial indicators of primary congenital glaucoma and filtering surgeries impacts on children and family's quality of life.

Purpose: To identify psychosocial indicators and evaluate the filtering surgeries impacts on quality of life (QOL) of children with primary congenital glaucoma (PCG) and their family.

Methods: Parents of children with bilateral PCG who underwent filtering surgery were included. Data were collected through: (a) psychological inquiry to determine psychosocial indicators; (b) Children's Visual Function Questionnaire (CVFQ). The associations between the CVFQ scores and visual acuity, intraocular pressure, optic disk cupping, horizontal corneal diameter, axial length, number of surgeries, and hypotensive eye drops were investigated. The statistical significance level was considered as  ⩽ 0.05.

Results: The mean age of the nine mothers interviewed and their children (six boys and three girls) was 29 ± 5 years and 35 ± 18 months, respectively. The psychosocial indicators determined were: emotional impact of the diagnosis, disease knowledge, mother and family's feelings on facing the surgical treatment, surgical result comprehension, treatment adherence, child's emotional and behavioral reactions, social support, and future expectations. In CVFQ analysis, QOL score was strongly associated with visual acuity ( = -0.79;  = 0.01). Besides the treatment score was correlated to intraocular pressure ( = -0.68;  < 0.05), optic disk cupping ( = -0.85;  = 0.03), and corneal diameter ( = -0.69;  = 0.02). Correlations were not found for number of surgeries and eye drops.

Conclusions: This study confirmed the PCG surgical treatment impact on QOL and determined psychosocial indicators which may favor the suitable actions in psychological treatment and follow-up of the children and families.