The psychosocial impact of closed-circuit television low vision aids

Abstract

AbstractLow vision service providers undertake to prescribe assistive devices that redress a client's vision disabilities that have been verified by organized assessment protocols. Evaluating the functional outcomes of this process provides a tangible validation of the integrity of the component assessment, prescribing and dispensing activities, but this does not necessarily provide a comprehensive picture about associated or attributed changes in the individual's quality of life. The Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scale (PIADS) is a 26-item self-rating scale designed to measure the impact of an assistive technology device on psychological well-being and subjective quality of life. The current study used the PIADS to assess the psychosocial impact of closed-circuit television CCTV devices on a cohort of 36 patients annually for the first three years following device adoption. Patients reported consistently high positive impacts during the first and second years post-adoption. The subjective psychosocial impact of the CCTV's appears to wane during the third annual post adoption. These results might be expected over longer periods of device use. Rather than indicating any diminished effectiveness of the CCTV devices, they might suggest a 'response shift' (e.g., users may recalibrate their internal assessment of the device intervention and the environments in which it has been used). We conclude that those patients for whom CCTV devices are prescribed enjoy substantial psychosocial benefit immediately after receiving their devices. These positive psychosocial benefits endure for several years and begin to wane somewhat during the third year. More research is needed to understand why the perceived impact lessens over time, and how these impacts are affected by different assessment, training, and counseling protocols.KeywordsCCTV low vision rehabilitation outcomes PIADS