[Validation of the 13-30ARAMAV assessment, a new quality of life and autonomy questionnaire adapted to visually impaired patients].

PURPOSE

To evaluate the ARAMAV 13-30 questionnaire, a new autonomy and quality of life questionnaire developed for visually impaired patients.

METHODS

We carried out a single-center prospective study at the ARAMAV institute in collaboration with the University Hospital of Nîmes. The patients included were admitted for low vision rehabilitation. Each patient received an occupational therapy assessment, the Short Forms 36 (SF36) quality of life questionnaire and the ARAMAV 13-30 questionnaire at the start and at the end of rehabilitation. We verified the reproducibility, the sensitivity to change, and internal and external consistency of the questionnaire.

RESULTS

We included 231 patients over a period of 4 years. All the patients were blind or visually impaired. We observed excellent intra- and interuser reproducibility of the questionnaire, with a Lin coefficient>0.9 (0.99 and 0.91, respectively). By comparing the variations of the different scores between before and after low vision rehabilitation, we observed excellent sensitivity to change for both the autonomy and quality of life portions of the questionnaire. Finally, we observed excellent internal and external consistency.

CONCLUSION

We therefore propose the ARAMAV 13-30 questionnaire as a new tool in evaluating autonomy and quality of life specifically in visually impaired patients, which may also be used to assess the effect of low vision rehabilitation.