Usefulness of Donate questionnaire to diagnose dry eye

Abstract

Questionnaires used to diagnose dry eye ask for intensity and frequency of the symptoms in the patients. The committee to establish the dry eye diagnosis methodology of the last International Dry Eye Workshop (2007) concluded that implementing a structured questionnaire offers an excellent opportunity to detect patients with this syndrome. <em><strong>Objective:</strong></em> to determine Donate et al. (2002) questionnaire usefulness to diagnose light, moderate and severe dry eye. Methodology: 63 eyes from patients who went to the Institute of Optometric Research at Universidad LaSalle with the posible diagnosis of dry eye, were classified as light, moderate and severe, and 19 eyes from patients who did not present any kind of pathology were analyzed as control group. Donate questionnaire, Shirmer test, BUT and fluoresceine were applied to all the patients. X2 was applied to establish significant differences between patients and control patients detected by the questionnaire. <em><strong>Results:</strong></em> 43 out of the 63 studied eyes were clinically classified as light dry eye (68,3%), 13 as moderate dry eye (20,6%) and 7 as severe dry eye (11,1%). The Donate questionnaire was positive in 83,9% of the patients and 21,1% of the control patients. There were statistical differences in all the tests between patients and control patients p<0.001.Regarding severity, the questionnaire was positive in the 83,3% of the light cases, 76,9% in moderate cases and 100% of severe cases. Dryness was the most reported symptom, followed by eye and eyelid tiredness. Conclusions: Donate questionnaire is a test comparable to clinical tests because it detects most of the cases of dry eye and its appropriate implementation is highly helpful to diagnose dry eye syndrome.