A situational analysis of ocular health promotion in the South African primary health‐care system

Abstract

BackgroundSouth Africa has a serious burden of avoidable blindness and visual impairment, which may be due to poor ocular health promotional policies and programs or implementation. Therefore, this paper sought to critically analyse the South African primary health‐care policies and programs, to identify the components of ocular health promotional policies and programs as well as how they are currently being implemented and to suggest areas that can be improved in order to minimise the burden of blindness and visual impairment.MethodsTriangulated quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in the study. Questionnaire and interviews were used to solicit data from national and provincial managers of different health directorates. Eye‐care managers from each province also completed the questionnaire. Furthermore, relevant health policy and program documents from national and provincial departments of health were studied to identify areas relating to ocular health promotion.ResultsThe study found varying degrees of implementation of various ocular health promotional activities in the provinces with the majority of respondents (62 per cent) indicating that ocular health promotion was not part of their responsibility and another 81 per cent revealing that vision screening does not form part of their health promotional programs. It further revealed a lack of a dedicated directorate for ocular health‐care issues and the absence of an integrated ocular health promotional policy.ConclusionOcular health promotional activities were absent in other provinces. This may be a major contributing factor to poor ocular health promotion in South Africa and hence, the high prevalence of blindness and visual impairment. Therefore, it is recommended that an integrated ocular health promotional model (directorate and policies) be developed and be part of the South African primary health‐care system.