Eye health promotion in multi-sectoral settings: A systematic review of intervention types and effectiveness

Multi-sectoral settings such as hospitals, health care centres, clinics, schools, workplaces, community events, and online platforms play an important role in reaching individuals from various socioeconomic backgrounds and delivering health promotion interventions that change behaviour and improve health outcomes. The aim of this review was to systematically review the nature and effectiveness of eye health promotion interventions implemented by eye health professionals across various multi-sectoral settings.

This review was conducted using the Centre for Review and Dissemination guidelines for conducting systematic reviews and reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 statement. A comprehensive and systematic search was conducted on electronic databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, and Medline, CINAHL and Academic Search Complete hosted on EBSCOHost and supplemented with a hand search for relevant studies published between 1999 and 2024. Two independent reviewers screened eligible studies, extracted data, and assessed study quality using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) 2018. The eligibility criterion was met by 80 studies out of 15 554 screened.

Eye health promotion interventions identified among studies were categorised as health education, health counselling, vision screening, eye screening and training programmes, health prevention, health promotion, health policy, ophthalmic intervention programmes, comprehensive eye examination and screening for diabetic retinopathy. Most studies showed a significant impact of eye health promotion interventions.

Overall, studies demonstrated a diverse range of strategies that have shown significant effectiveness across various settings. This systematic review highlights the effectiveness of eye health promotion interventions, whilst identifying gaps in compliance, follow-up systems, and policy integration.Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42022354299.