Avaliação do conhecimento sobre cirurgia refrativa por meio de questionário eletrônico

Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and apply an online questionnaire to assess knowledge in Refractive Surgery in the analyzed population. Methods: An online questionnaire was applied to a population composed of 840 volunteer participants over 18 years of age. Results: The mean age of population was 37.85 years, of whom 60.1% were female. 20.95% of the participants reported having undergone previous eye surgery, 73.86% of which had a refractive objective. Among these, 73.08% were satisfied / very satisfied with the result. The most important criterion when choosing a refractive surgeon was the indication by a friend who underwent the procedure (43.81%). It is noteworthy that the participants who underwent refractive surgery disagreed more than the other people that “the surgery is a simple and risk-free procedure” (p = 0.0045) and that “the main objective of the surgery is to “zero” the diopter” (p = 0.0252). Conclusion: It is essential to improve population’s preoperative knowledge about Refractive Surgery, as well as continuing education for ophthalmologists. Therefore, this study encourages the development of new education tools with clear and easily accessible information, which should be informative, and not convincing.