Stress and vision-related quality of life in acute and chronic central serous chorioretinopathy

Background: To compare vision-related quality of life (VRQOL) between acute and chronic Central serous chorioretinopathy (CSC) and correlate this with Cohen's Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire.

Methods: Patients who were diagnosed with both acute and chronic CSC were recruited in this study. Vision-related quality of life (VRQOL) was assessed with Rasch revised National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire 25 (NEI-VFQ25) and perceived stress with Cohen's PSS questionnaire in 118 subjects with either acute or chronic CSC. The quality of life score was compared between patients with acute and chronic CSC. Correlations between the functional score and visual acuity (VA), stage of CSC, and stress were studied.

Results: There was no significant difference in VRQOL between Acute and Chronic CSC. In Acute CSC, affected eye VA correlated significantly with near vision question of the visual function subscale. Better eye VA correlated significantly with distance vision, social function, role limitation and dependency of the socioeconomic subscale. In chronic CSC, affected eye VA correlated with social function question of the socioemotional subscale and the better eye VA correlated with driving and distance vision of the visual function subscale. No other significant correlations with VA were noted. No correlations were observed between outcome of Cohen's PSS questionnaire and NEI-VFQ25 scores of acute and chronic CSC.

Conclusion: The VRQOL is similar between acute and chronic CSC. Perceived stress was not found to influence the VRQOL in CSC.