Epidemiologic survey of blindness and low vision in Luogang country of Guangzhou

Abstract

Objective To investigate the prevalence and cause of blindness and low vision amongpeople aged ≥50 in Luogang county of Guangzhou,China.Methods Cluster sampling was used in randomlyselecting individuals aged 50 and above in Luogang county of Guangzhou .A survey of visual acuityquestionnaire was performed on the basis of The WHO blindness and low vision criterion..Visual function andOcular morphology examination was carried out in the eyes with pinhole presenting visual acuity less than 0.3by ophthalmologists,and the principal cause of blindness and low sight was analyzed.Results A total 4126among 4532 subjects were investigated with the examination rate 91.04% .Survey result showed that theprevalence of bilateral blindness and bilateral low visual acuity was 1.91% and 8.04% respectively.Theprevalance of lateral blindness was 5.96%.With the increase of ages, the prevalence of blindness and low visualsignificantly increased.The prevalence of bilateral blindness in the group aged ≥70 years was 25.5 fold morethan that in the group50 -59 years,showing a statistically significant difference between these two group s ( P<0101 ).The leading cause of blindness and low visual in subjects in turn was cataract (47.09%),ocular fundusdisease (20.4%), refractive errors ( 9.52 ), ceratonosus (7.59%).Moreover, hypophyseoma (0.74%).ConclusionThe leading cause of blindness and low visual acuity among people aged 50 and over in Luogang county wascataract.Preventiun and management of cataract is still a key project in this area.Moreover,ocular fundusdisease is also one important project. Key words: Blindness; Low vision; Prevalence; Epidemiologic survey