Patient Experience With Office-Based Corneal Transplantation.

PURPOSE: To evaluate patient experience with office-based corneal transplantation.

METHODS: Five hundred sixty-seven consecutive patients had a corneal transplant in a stand-alone operation unit, ie, a unidirectional flow hood inside a dedicated treatment room in an office setting. Six months postoperatively, all patients received a questionnaire inquiring how they experienced corneal surgery and the operation unit; 354 patients responded to the questionnaire and their answers were scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction.

RESULTS: The average score to the question "How would you rate your experience of your corneal operation in general?" was 4.4 ± 0.62 (n = 354), and the average score to the question "How would you rate your experience within the operation unit, taking into consideration feelings of claustrophobia and how comfortable you felt?" was 4.1 ± 0.82 (n = 348). Patients who had undergone previous ocular surgery in a conventional operating theater scored their office-based corneal transplant no less favorably than those patients for whom it was their first operation (P = 0.9 and P = 0.77, respectively). Most subjective comments pertained to the surgical stretcher, rather than to the experience of office-based surgery in general or to the unidirectional flow hood in particular.

CONCLUSIONS: Regardless of the ophthalmic surgical history, patient experience with office-based corneal transplantation was generally positive.