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Do recycled spectacles meet the refractive needs of a developing country?
Sue Ling Wan1, Seyhan Yazar, Lisa Booth
1Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Western Australia/ Lions Eye Institute, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Purpose:
The aim was to compare the power of spectacles donated to a recycled spectacle program to the custom-made spectacle refractive prescriptions dispensed in a developing country.
Methods:
Two hundred consecutive prescriptions were audited in an optical dispensary in Timor-Leste, a developing nation. These refractions were compared against measurements of 2,075 wearable donated spectacles. We determined how many of the 200 prescriptions could be matched to a donated spectacle measurement, how many donated spectacles could be tried for each prescription and how long it would take to find the matched spectacles.
Results:
There were 1,854 donated spectacles identified as being suitable for comparison with the 200 refractive prescriptions. Twenty-nine out of 200 prescriptions (14.5 per cent) were matched to at least one pair of donated spectacles.
Conclusion:
Recycling all spectacles is not cost-effective in a developing country that has the ability to make custom-made spectacles and dispense ready-made spectacles.
