{"doi":"10.17615/7rth-n610","title":"Determination of the minimal clinically important difference of the UNC Dry Eye Management Scale","abstract":"Purpose: To establish an initial estimation of the MCID of the University of North Carolina Dry Eye Management Scale (UNC DEMS) and assess its association with patient perceptions of symptom change. Methods: Thirty-three patients (33.3% men, 67.7% women, mean age 60.5 yrs) with previous DEMS scores were recruited from a UNC ophthalmology clinic in spring 2014. We used anchor-based methods, categorizing important symptom change, to compare the change in the DEMS scores across visits to patient assessments of change; linear regression coefficients estimated the MCID. We correlated clinical assessments, patient perceptions, and DEMS scores. Results: DEMS score changes correlated with global anchors [20.4229 (P = 0.014)]. Unadjusted linear regression yielded a beta coefficient of 20.54 (confidence interval, 20.97 to 20.12, R2 = 0.18, P = 0.014), which estimated the DEMS MCID. Adjusting the regression model for days since the last visit and DEMS score improved the association (beta = 20.56; confidence interval, 20.99 to 20.13; R2 = 0.43; P = 0.013). Descriptive statistics produced an MCID of 1 point. Patients said that 2 points would represent a significant change. The DEMS modestly correlated with the Schirmer test (20.4045, P = 0.0266), Oxford Grading Scheme (+0.3713, P = 0.0364), and tear breakup time (20.3559, P = 0.0456). Conclusions: The UNC DEMS is a valid, responsive patient-reported outcome measure instrument, which is easy to use in the clinic and capable of showing an MCID of 1 point.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2022,"id":312142,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.8537,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":931182,"name":"C. Hwang","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1010078,"name":"J.R. Ellis","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1006109,"name":"S. Tolleson-Rinehart","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":606387,"name":"R.M. Davis","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:33:36.072096Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}