The investigation of cataract surgery of rural population in the Ming Shui county of Heilongjiang Province

Abstract

Objective To determine the prevalence of cataract blindness and the treatment situation,the status of surgical treatment of cataract,the estimate of cataract surgical coverage (CSC),and the cataract surgery capacity of rural population in the county of Ming Shui,China,and to provide reliable data for the development strategy of the future blindness treatment. Methods Population-based,cluster random sampling method was employed.There were two investigation teams interviewed the volunteers; checked their visual acuity,intraocular pressure and other eye examinations at the same time.The prevalence of cataract and binocular cataract was statistical analyzed.Logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between age,gender,education level and the blindness of cataract and binocular cataract; Logistic regression was also used to analyze the relationship between cataracts with smoking and drinking.The cataract surgical coverage (CSC) and cataract surgery load was calculated. Results The prevalence of cataract was 4.42％ (95％ CI:4.0％～4.8％),the risk factors included age (≥ 40 years),female.The prevalence of binocular cataract blindness was 0.35％ (95％ CI:0.24％ -0.46％),gender were not the risk factors,age (≥50 years) was risk factor.Cataract surgical coverage (CSC) was 12.42％ (95％ CI:11.28％-13.56％),CSC was the highest in the 50-59 age group.Gender did not have the significant difference in statistics.The load of cataract surgery was 3.26％. Conclusions The cataract is the leading cause of blindness of the population ≥ 50 years old in the investigated region,the cataract surgical coverage is low and the burden of social caused by the cataract blinds are heavy.So improving the coverage of cataract surgery is the fundamental means to eliminate cataract blindness. Key words: Cataract; Cataract surgical coverage (CSC); Cataract surgery load