• Annals of Saudi medicine · Sep 2011

    Prevalence and causes of visual impairment among Saudi adults attending primary health care centers in northern Saudi Arabia.

    • Farhan Fayez Al-Shaaln, Marwan Abdurrahman Bakrman, Adel Mohammad Ibrahim, and Abdullah Srour Aljoudi.
    • Directorate of Primary Health Care, Aljouf, Saudi Arabia.
    • Ann Saudi Med. 2011 Sep 1; 31 (5): 473480473-80.

    Background And ObjectivesFew studies have been conducted in Saudi Arabia to estimate the prevalence of visual impairment and its causes. The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of visual impairment, and identify its causes and associated factors among the adult population attending primary health care (PHC) centers in Aljouf province, in northern Saudi Arabia.Design And SettingA cross-sectional study during the year 2005 in PHC centers in Aljouf province in northern Saudi Arabia.Patients And MethodsA sample of 620 Saudi adults, of age 18 years and older, from the catchment area of the Aljouf PHC centers, were randomly selected through a multistage random sampling technique. Data were collected using a questionnaire about socioeconomic and related information and a visual acuity test was performed using the Snellen chart (E). Diagnosis was established according to World Health Organization (WHO) criteria. Visual impairment was categorized into blindness for a visual acuity of less than 3/60 (20/400, 0.05) in the better eye with the best correction and low vision for a best corrected visual acuity of less than 6/18 (20/60, 0.3) but not less than 3/60 (20/400, 0.05) in the better eye. Regression analysis was used to identify the predictors of visual impairment.ResultsOf 617 adult Saudis interviewed and examined, 269 (43.6%) were females. The mean (SD) age was 38.6 (16.2) years. The overall prevalence of visual impairment was 13.9% (95% CI: 11.4%-16.9%). The main medical causes of visual impairments were refractive errors (36.0%) followed by cataract (29.1%) and diabetic retinopathy (20.9%), and the least leading cause was glaucoma (5.8%). The most prominent determinants of visual impairment were age (P<.05), sex (P<.001), and a history of previous eye injury (P<.05).ConclusionPrevalence of visual impairment in the study population from the Aljouf area is high. It is recommended that regular checks of visual acuity be conducted for all Saudis of age 50+ years, who attend the PHC centers.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…