Behind the survey

Can this survey help me decide whether to get laser eye surgery?

This survey provides a real-life account of what it is like to have laser surgery to improve your eyesight. It sheds light on how people make decisions about laser eye surgery—Should I have it? Where should I have it? Who should perform the surgery?—and how those decisions affect their vision outcomes and satisfaction. The survey also gauges how people's lives are changed by their surgery. For instance, 60 percent of our respondents said they saw a marked improvement in their leisure time after their surgery, while only 28 percent found their relationships with people were better or much better.

Does this survey represent the general population?

Results were collected from a nationally representative survey of the U.S. population that was designed by the Consumer Reports National Research Center in consultation with internal and external medical experts. Panelists were recruited via random digit dialing and provided with Internet access and training when necessary. It is possible that our sample underrepresents younger people, who are more likely to live in cell-phone-only households. Because the respondents made the decision to have this surgery, they all shared a desire and willingness to improve their vision and make a personal investment in its success. We did not collect data from those who decided not to have surgery, and cannot compare the outcomes between these two groups.

How does the laser eye surgery survey compare with clinical studies?

Clinical studies usually include objective diagnostic measures—a blood test, a biopsy—combined with a physical exam to assess whether treatment is effective. Clinical studies may also follow people over time. The results from the laser eye-surgery survey are self-reported accounts collected at one point in time (and in this instance could be years after the actual surgery.) How people recall experiences is inevitably shaded by their current disposition and things that have happened since the surgery.

Clinical studies may be randomized controlled trials, considered the "gold standard" in medical research. They may permit comparison between relatively similar samples randomly assigned to treatment alternatives. They are the most definitive method we have for determining whether a treatment really works. Our medical team reviewed the limited data available from clinical trials on the topic of laser vision correction. But there are inherent limitations to these investigations, including small sample sizes, inadequate length of the study, and high dropout rates, as well as potential biases due to the source of funding for the trial.

Clinical studies are extremely precise, which has pros and cons. One of the fundamental pros is that precision erases ambiguity regarding the exact procedure being studied. Twenty-eight percent of our laser eye-surgery survey respondents were unsure about what type of surgery they had (such as Lasik, Lasek, PRK, or epi-Lasik). In a clinical study about laser eye surgery, all of the patients would have had a clearly defined procedure and an objective measure of their starting and ending vision.

Our respondents were generally quite satisfied with their experiences with laser eye surgery since 2001. As with all surgical techniques, laser vision correction is an ever-changing field. In our data, the year of surgery made no difference in satisfaction, but it's important to recognize that techniques change. These results are of laser vision correction procedures that have been available since 2001.

One of the cons of clinical studies is that the more precise a clinical trial, the fewer people to which it will apply. Although understanding findings from these studies is a critically important piece of the decision-making process, the narrow focus limits the breadth of information available about a specific surgery. A clinical trial often prescreens candidates and excludes those who do not meet specific health criteria. Our laser eye-surgery survey fills this gap by asking a wide range of questions to a representative group of Americans about all aspects of the surgical experience, from making preoperative decisions to surgical outcomes and their potential for lifestyle changes.