Clinical scales are often utilized to compare the medical outcomes of different treatments. They must be able to reveal subtle differences in the outcomes and detect the minimal changes of clinical significance after medical interventions, that is, they must have a certain degree of responsiveness. Responsiveness represents the ability to demonstrate the changes of target characteristics across objects and times. In other words, responsiveness shows the scale’s sensitivity in reflecting the changes of the object features.

Effect size (ES) statistics is often used to evaluate responsiveness of the score. Its calculation formula is ES = (postoperative QOL score-preoperative QOL score)/standard deviation of the preoperative QOL score. Generally speaking, the value of ES should be greater than 0.2. The effect size is considered small if ES ranges from 0.2 to 0.5, medium if it ranges from 0.5 to 0.8, and large if it is over 0.8.

With changes in various factors, e.g., people’s living conditions, views, and values, the medical model has greatly transformed. In recent years, the survey on quality of life for a specific population has become another important tool to assess health status in medical research. Meanwhile, in the field of ophthalmology, examinations of visual function alone can no longer assess the overall patient health, and therefore, a more comprehensive evaluation is needed to effectively assess the patient’s health condition. As an assessment of patients’ subjective well-being, quality of life reflects their social and living abilities, as well as their psychological state. It is an effective supplement to the object examinations of visual function.

Previous studies on pediatric congenital cataracts mainly focused on the visual function. When children’s visual acuity was improved after surgery, the treatment was considered to have reached its end point. However, huge differences exist among the ophthalmologists’ evaluation on the children’s condition, the children’s own personal feelings, and the social recognition of these pediatric patients. Attention was rarely paid to their personal feelings, vision-related performance in daily life, social interaction, psychological status, personalities, emotion, and so on. Reports on the utilization of quality of life instruments in pediatric ophthalmology are rare, and the quality of life scale designed especially for pediatric congenital cataracts has not been reported. In light of this and based on the general steps and principles of scale development, the characteristics of children with congenital cataracts, and the content of the established quality of life scales, we developed the quality of life scale specifically for pediatric congenital cataracts and carried out preliminary validation studies in an attempt to comprehensively assess the health status of children with congenital cataracts and to improve their treatment outcomes [15].

QOL survey has become an important tool in evaluating health status in the field of medical research. They are essential to evaluation of self-awareness, visual function, social life, psychological well-being, personality, and emotion of children with congenital cataracts. Children are a special population in that their capabilities to cooperate, comprehend, and express are less developed than adults. Therefore, a QOL survey should possess adequate validity, reliability, and responsiveness, and the design of which should follow the principles of suitability, effectiveness, and feasibility. The authors have formulated a QOL survey specific to children with congenital cataracts, which facilitates comprehensive assessment of the health status in these children.