Teleophthalmology- Phone based App promising in checking visual aquity in kids
Researchers have found in a new study that Phone-based application shows promise in checking visual aquity in children especially in the wake of COVID 19 outbreak during restrictions of movements and lockdowns.
The team of researchers pointed out that GoCheck Kids as checked by a family member provided a modest correlation of visual acuity compared to the chart screen and a fair correlation of visual acuity compared to HOTV-Amblyopia Treatment Study protocol, although most were within 1 line. The interesting findings have been published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology.
Withh the recent rise of teleophthalmology due to coronavirus disease, health care needs accurate and reliable methods of checking visual acuity remotely. The ideal method of checking visual acuity at home would be easy to use, accurate, precise, inexpensive (or free), ensure monocular testing and be available to test every single patient and family.
In a recent study ,The visual acuity as measured by the GoCheck Kids application was compared with that of the Amblyopia Treatment Study (ATS) and the authors' clinic protocol.
The study design was a prospective, comparison of visual acuity assessment methods.
Established patients (3-18 years of age) in the practice of a single pediatric ophthalmologist were eligible. Visual acuity was measured 1) by GoCheck Kids mobile application, by the patient's family member; 2) by HOTV-ATS, by study personnel; and 3) by regular clinic protocol, by an ophthalmic technician. To assess agreement between measurement of acuity, intraclass correlations with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed.
Data analysis revealed the following facts.
A total of 53 children participated.
The mean differences between GoCheck Kids and HOTV-ATS acuities (0.094) were significantly different (P < .001).
The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.55 (95% CI: 0.40-0.68). The mean differences between GoCheck Kids and chart acuities (0.010) were not significantly different (P = .319; ICC: 0.59; 95% CI: 0.45-0.71).
The mean differences between HOTV-ATS and chart acuities (0.084) were significantly different (P < .001; ICC: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.53-0.76).
The percentages of eyes with visual acuity measured by GoCheck Kids within 1 line of the HOTV-ATS and chart acuity were 65.3% and 86.7%, respectively.
"This study shows that visual acuity using GoCheck Kids at 5 feet has fair agreement with HOTV-ATS. On average, the visual acuity as measured by GoCheck Kids is 1 line worse than HOTV-ATS and very close to the chart acuity. The visual acuity measured by HOTV-ATS averages one line better than the chart acuity."wrote the team.
For the full article follow the link: https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiaa606
Primary source: American Journal of Ophthalmology
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