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[Patient awareness study of elderly population in rural Guangdong]
1Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou 510060, China.
Objective:
To investigate the patients' awareness on the eye diseases, treatment and major barriers for patients to seek eye care.
Method:
Randomly clustering sampling method was used for all the subjects aged 50 years and over, and their eyes were examined. All subjects with presenting visual acuity less than 0.1 in at least one eye underwent the test of the patient's awareness questionnaire developed in Aravind Eye Hospital, India.
Results:
Five hundred and thirty-five (85.5%) visual impairment subjects were successfully interviewed. In 526 cases with the ocular disease course over 1 year, 95% of them were aware of the occurrence of eye diseases for more than 1 year. However, in the 448 cases with the ocular diseases treatable, only 24.2% of them realized that their eye diseases could be treated, while 73% of them did not know or did know right on the examination date. The major barriers for seeking eye care were economic reason, fear of operation, far distance from a hospital, etc.
Conclusion:
Patients' education and low price service are probably the effective methods to clear the roadblock on the way of improving the coverage of eye care.