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Table 3 Most frequently reported concepts in concept elicitation interviews (N = 23)

From: Content validity of a novel patient-reported and observer-reported outcomes assessment to evaluate ocular symptoms associated with infectious conjunctivitis in both adult and pediatric populations

Concept

Participants reporting concept, n

Spontaneous, % participants reporting concepta

Probed, % participants reporting concepta

Other terms used to describe concept

Example quote (participant)

Discharge

22

100

0

Crust/crusty/crusting (n = 6), yellow (n = 4), like something was in the eye (n = 3), gooey (n = 3)

… I got up in the morning, my eye was like, like crusted shut … so I’d have to really get the cotton balls, put them on, you know, wet them and kind of wipe the stuff out of my eye, and that was like probably every 15, 20 min (adult patient)

Red/pink eyes

22

95

5

Pink (n = 5), red (n = 4), irritated (n = 4)

Actually, she started rubbing her eyes. And then I noticed her eye was redder than the other eye (caregiver)

Itching/Itchiness

22

68

32

Rubbing eyes (n = 11), itch/itches/itching (n = 10), irritated/irritation/irritating (n = 4)

… It would itch a little bit so I would rub my eye and then it would just keep getting worse and worse...I wanted to like do something but there was really nothing that I could do (child patient)

Swelling/puffiness

12

100

0

Puffy/puffiness (n = 7), eye bags (n = 2)

Yeah, puffy, swollen. A mess, wore sunglasses to go to weddings (adult patient)

Watery eyes

17

41

59

Cry/crying (n = 3), tears (n = 2), runny/running (n = 2), watery (n = 2), glassy/glossy (n = 2)

… kind of irritating … I had runny eyes and in between the mucus cleaning up, my eyes were running because I was constantly blinking … (adult patient)

Pain

13

54

46

Hurt/hurting (n = 5), burning (n = 4), itchy/itching (n = 3)

It felt like something was in your eye or like just – it was like stinging a little bit and it wasn’t that bad but it just hurt and you could tell that it was hurting (child patient)

Burning

12

42

58

Burned (n = 3), uncomfortable (n = 2), irritated/irritating (n = 2)

That’s like it wasn’t where it is like you slide some kind of chemical in your eye. It wasn’t like that type of burning, but it was like an irritating type of burn (adult patient)

Foreign body sensation

18

28

72

Like something is in eye (n = 9), itch/itching/itchiness (n = 6), scratchy (n = 2), constantly picking at the eye (n = 2), eyelash in/on the eye (n = 2)

… like if you get a piece of sand in your eye or something like that. Kind of scratchy I guess (adult patient)

Discomfort

21

10

90

Itchy/itching (n = 7), like something in the eye (n = 6), uncomfortable (n = 4)

Um, more of discomfort, um, because she wanted to rub her eye a lot. She just kept saying it feel like something’s in my eye (caregiver)

  1. aPercentage of participants who reported each concept either spontaneously in response to an open-ended question or after probing by the interviewer