Evaluation Of The Causes Of Blindness In Patients Admitted To The Health Board Of A Hospital Servicing Souteastern Anatolia
Abstract
Objective:
We aimed to reveal the causes of blindness in patients who applied to a health
board of our hospital which provides service to a socioeconomically depressed
region.
Methods: We
retrospectively reviewed the records of 314 patients who were blind in at least
one eye were recorded among 2214 patients who were referred to our hospital's
health board between February 2016 and January 2018 for evaluation by the
health board to receive a disability report from our hospital.
Results: In
this study, we determined that 185 (58.9%) patients were female, 129 (41.1%) patients
were male and the mean patient age was 70.84 ± 19.15 years. The most common
causes of blindness were cataract seen in 104 (33.1%) patients, phthisis eyes
in 53 (16.9%) patients, optic atrophy in 40 (12.7%) patients, corneal opacities
in 35 (11.1%) patients and diabetic retinopathy in 20 (6.4%) patients.
Conclusions: Both in our study and in other studies conducted in our region, preventable blindness such as cataract, phthisis and corneal opacity have been detected at high rates. Therefore we believe that more awareness and effort may be needed to reduce such preventable blindness in our region.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
Health Care Administration
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Seyfettin Erdem
*
This is me
0000-0001-5742-1293
Publication Date
June 11, 2019
Submission Date
November 14, 2018
Acceptance Date
January 4, 2019
Published in Issue
Year 2019 Volume: 46 Number: 2