Hospital prevalence and major causes of low vision in a tertiary care centre in South India: A Hospital record based study

Abstract

Aims: To determine the hospital prevalence as well as the low vision causes among patients coming to a tertiary care centre. Settings and Design: Retrospective study was conducted by review of files of patients who presented to the Ophthalmology OPD from September 2013 to February 2014. Material and Methods: Records of 4989 patients in the 20-60 years age group who presented to the Ophthalmology OPD were collected and data obtained. Patients with a visual acuity of < 6>3 Results: There were 102 patients with low vision who attended the OPD during the study period. There were 36 (35%) male and 66 (65%) female patients among the low vision patients. The low vision causes were retinal diseases (72%), amblyopia (15%), corneal opacity (9%) and glaucoma (4%). Conclusion: Hospital prevalence of low vision was estimated to be 2.19% (SE-1.43). Among these patients, the causes of low vision were detected to be Retinal diseases like Diabetic Retinopathy, Hypertensive Retinopathy and pathological myopia, amblyopia, corneal opacity and glaucoma. Keywords: Low vision, Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), Age Related Macular Degeneration (ARMD), Hypertensive Retinopathy (HTR), Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP).