A Study on the Improvement of Visual Acuity and Refractive Power According to General Characteristics of Cataract Surgery Patients

For 299 patients who had undergone cataract surgeries we investigated the difference in visual acuity and refractive power before and after cataract surgery and the clinical change of the visual acuity and the refractive power according to age, gender, hospital visit time and specific medical history. We found the factors affecting preoperative and postoperative outcomes of the cataract patients in metropolitan hospitals by input, process, and outcome and analyzed medical characteristics and patient characteristics as the input variables. T-test and ANOVA have been performed for statistical analysis of functional status, and general status and the technical characteristic as the process variable and the outcome variable of diagnosis. Visual acuity improved significantly in patients who had undergone cataract surgery. However, the change in refractive power did not show a statistically significant difference but only a slight difference. The improvement of male patients was greater than that of female patients. The difference in age was more effective in patients under 50 years old and the effect of cataract surgery was relatively high in patients without the presence of specific medical history. Cataract surgery did not seem to help all of the patients, but it is more effective in improving visual acuity and refractive power. We conclude that simultaneous cataract surgery in both eyes is reasonable in order to have at least the better effect.