The Michigan Vision-related Anxiety Questionnaire

OVERVIEW

• Validated Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) measure
  
• Focused on psychosocial screening and monitoring for patients with inherited retinaldegenerations
  
• Measure can be utilized in therapeutic clinical trials for measuring the benefit ofan investigational therapy on a patient’s vision related anxiety
  

INNOVATION

An important new feature of the MVAQ is its ability to relate psychosocial reports to a retinal physiologic pathway. Furthermore, the MVAQ disability scores exhibit correlations with VA, phenotype, and self-reported feelings. Other PRO measures ask about a patient’s feelings or concerns, but their responses cannot be linked to the pathologic defect underlying their visual impairment. In contrast, the MVAQ allows a clinician to map the concerns of the patient into an actionable area for improvement. As opposed to knowing that a patient experiences “fear” or “worry”, with the MVAQ a clinician can identify whether a patient’s rod dysfunction is the predominant cause of their anxiety, and recommend accommodations to their living setting and vision-related activities to address these specific anxiety-provoking situations.

The current study demonstrates psychometric validation of items pertaining to vision related anxiety in patients with IRDs and collectively form the MVAQ. The MVAQ measures vision-related anxiety due to dysfunction in either a predominantly cone pathway or a rod pathway. It can be used as a screening tool to direct the attention of a clinician to counseling and psychosocial interventions, as well as to measure baseline and follow-up vision related anxiety for targeted low vision rehabilitation and psychotherapy. Finally, the MVAQ may also be incorporated in therapeutic clinical trials to understand the benefit of a novel therapeutic intervention for reducing a patient’s vision-related anxiety. 

OTHER