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  • FACE-Q Eye Module for Measuring PROMs After Cosmetic Eye Treatments

    By Marianne Doran and selected by Deepak P. Edward, MD
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    Journal Highlights

    JAMA Facial and Plastic Surgery
    2017;19(1):7-14

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    Cosmetic eye treatments can dramati­cally change a person’s appearance, but the outcomes are rarely measured from the patient’s perspective. Klassen et al. described the development and psycho­metric evaluation of FACE-Q Eye Mod­ule scales, designed for patient-reported outcome measurements (PROMs) after aesthetic eye treatment.

    The FACE-Q is a validated PROM that was developed to address the lack of instruments for facial aesthetic procedures. It includes more than 40 scales and checklists that measure ap­pearance, health-related quality of life, adverse effects of treatment, and the patient experience of care. The FACE-Q Eye Module has been developed to specifically measure eye-related PROMs and includes 4 appearance scales (eyes overall, upper eyelids, lower eyelids, and lashes), ranging from 0 (worst) to 100 (best), as well as a checklist to mea­sure adverse effects after eye treatments.

    Participants included 287 pretreat­ment and posttreatment patients 18 years and older undergoing facial aes­thetic procedures. They were recruited from plastic surgery clinics in United States and Canada and asked to com­plete the FACE-Q survey questionnaire, either in person or by mail; 233 patients (81%) completed the survey.

    The researchers used Rasch Mea­surement Theory, a modern psycho­metric approach, to analyze the differ­ence between observed and predicted responses and to evaluate goodness of fit between the data and the model.

    The adverse effects reported by patients included being bothered by eyelid scars, dry eyes, and eye irritation. Applying Rasch analysis, the research­ers found that each scale’s items had ordered thresholds and good item fit. Higher scores on the eye scales correlat­ed with fewer adverse effects. In the pretreatment group, older age cor­related with lower scores on the scales measuring appearance of the eyes and upper and lower eyelids. Compared with the pretreatment group, posttreat­ment participants reported significantly better scores on the scales measuring appearance of eyes overall, as well as upper and lower eyelids.

    The researchers stated that their psychometric analysis provided evidence of the reliability and validity of the 4 FACE-Q Eye Module scales. Thus, they concluded that this instru­ment can be used for the collection of evidence-based information about cos­metic eye treatments from the patient’s perspective.

    The original article can be found here.