Purpose To investigate the emotional status of children un-dergoing active treatment for ambly opia.Design Postal survey,in the context of a prospecti ve,multicenter,ran-domized controlled trial.Particip ants Parents of 177chil-dren with a unilateral visual impair ment referred from preschool vision screening.The chi ldren had been re-cruited to a randomized controlled t rial of treatment for u-nilateral visual impairment and ran domly assigned to re-ceive either glasses with or without patches,glasses alone,or treatment deferred for 1year.Methods A self-completion questionnaire,including a psychom etric behavioral scale,was sent to the parents of all childre n recruited to the trial at age 4years,to 66whose deferred tr eatment began at age5years,and finally to 151remaining in the trial at the end of follow-up.Main outcome measures Mean scores per treatment group on the Revised Rutte r Parent Scale for Preschool Children.Comparison of p arent responses to questions assessing the child’s general well-being and dif-ficulties associated with treatmen t.Results Completed questionnaires were returned for 144of 177(81%)chil-dren at a mean age(standard deviation)of 48months(5.0),for 45of 66(68%)at a mean age of 61months(5.8),and for 78of 151(52%)at a mean age of 67 months(5.0).Most parents reported having diffi culty with patching their child regardless of a ge(77%at age 4years and 73%at age 5years),with fewer reporting difficulties with glasses alone(42%and 53%,respectively).Chil-dren were significantly more upset b y patching than by glasses only(chi-square test,P=0.03for age 4years and P=0.01for age 5years),as were the parents of4-year-olds(chi-square test,P=0.01).Most parents thought their children were happy,c ooperative,and good tempered,and behavioral scores did not differ between treatment groups.Conclusions Treatment for unilateral vi-sual impairment is not easy to implem ent and is commonly associated with some degree of distr ess.Despite this,no impact on the childs global well-being or behavior was seen either during or after the treatment period. Purpose To investigate the emotional status of children un-dergoing active treatment for ambly opia. Design Postal survey, in the context of a prospecti ve, multicenter, ran-domized controlled trial. Participants of 177chil-dren with a unilateral visual impairment referred from preschool vision screening. The chi ldren had been re-cruited to a randomized controlled rival of treatment for u-nilateral visual impairment and ran domly assigned to re-ceive either glasses with or without patches, glasses alone, or treatment deferred for 1year.Methods A self-completion questionnaire, including a psychom etric behavioral scale, was sent to the parents of all childre n recruited to the trial at age 4years, to 66whose deferred tr eatment began at age 5years, and finally to 151remaining in the trial at the end of follow-up. Main outcome measures Mean scores per treatment group on the Revised Rutter r Parent Scale for Preschool Children. Comparison of p arent responses to questions assessing the child s general well-being and dif-ficulties associated with treatmen t. Results completed questionnaires were returned for 144 of 177 (81%) chil-dren at a mean age (standard deviation) of 48 months (5.0), for 45 of 66 (68%) at a mean age of 61 months (5.8), and for 78 of 151 (52%) at a mean age of 67 months (5.0) .Most parents reported having diffi culty with patching their child regardless of a ge (77% at age 4years and 73% at age 5years), with fewer reporting difficulties with glasses alone (42% and 53%, respectively) .Chil-dren were significantly more upset by patching than by glasses only (chi-square test, P = 0.03 for age 4years and P = 0.01 for age 5years), as were the parents of4-year-olds (chi-square test, P = 0.01) .Most parents thought their children were happy, c ooperative, and good tempered, and behavioral scores did not differ between treatment groups. Conclusions Treatment for unilateral vi-sual impairment is not easy to implem ent and is commonly associated with some degree of distr ess. Despite this, no impact on the child s global well-being or behavior was seen either during or after the treatment period.