Functional Difficulties of Patients Seeking Low Vision Services in South India

The aim of the study was to determine the functional concerns of patients with different clinical and demographic characteristics seeking low vision care in South India.

Cross-sectional clinic-based survey.

Consecutive new patients evaluated by the low vision service at Aravind Eye Care System (AECS), Madurai, India, India from September 2016 to March 2017 were recruited. Clinical and sociodemographic data were collected and participants underwent a semistructured survey to determine vision-related functional concerns. Analyses were conducted to determine associations with functional concerns. This study was approved by the AECS Institutional Review Board and all participants provided informed consent.

The study included 419 participants (mean age 42.0 years, 65.2% male). Retinal dystrophy (35.8%) and acquired retinal disease (22.0%) were the most common diagnoses. The most frequently cited functional concerns were reading (37.7%), mobility (19.9%), and facial identification (13.8%). The number of functional concerns did not vary by diagnosis, age, sex, education, occupation, or presenting visual acuity (P > 0.05). Participants with retinal dystrophy were more likely to cite problems with night vision (P < .001). Age was significantly associated with greater difficulty recognizing faces [odds ratio (OR) = 1.20, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.01-1.43] and less night vision difficulty (OR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.60-1.00). Worse presenting visual acuity was significantly associated with reporting a mobility problem (OR = 2.87, 95% CI = 2.09-3.93).

This study supports the expansion of low vision services in India targeted to common functional concerns including reading, mobility, and facial identification. However, results do not support the use of ocular diagnosis for this purpose.