Characteristics Of Glaucoma Patients Research Articles

Glaucoma is associated with poorer self-rated vision, vision concerns and health: Results from 59,168 questionnaire responses

PurposeThis study aimed to examine self-rated vision, vision concerns, and general health in individuals with and without glaucoma. Such assessments offer a broad view of a person's overall well-being and potential health issues and provide valuable insights into the characteristics of glaucoma patients. DesignCross-sectional. MethodsWe used questionnaire responses from Project FOREVER (Finding Ophthalmic Risk and Evaluating the Value of Eye exams and their predictive Reliability) to evaluate self-rated vision and general health on a scale ranging from 1 (excellent), 2 (good), 3 (reasonable), 4 (poor) to 5 (very bad). Additionally, the vision concerns were rated on a scale from 1 (never), 2 (rarely), 3 (once in a while), 4 (often) to 5 (always). A glaucoma diagnosis was self-reported and obtained from the questionnaire. To investigate the strength and direction of associations, we used binomial logistic regression models including self-assessment, age, and sex as confounding variables and glaucoma status as the dependent variable. ResultsThis study analyzed questionnaire data from 59,168 participants, with an average age of 55.2 years (SD 15.0), and 62.0 % being women. Of these, 900 individuals (1.5 %) reported having a glaucoma diagnosis. Individuals having glaucoma reported poorer self-ratings in vision, vision concerns and general health. Specifically, the odds ratios for the poorest ratings were 2.46 for self-rated vision (95 % CI 1.70–3.55, p < 0.001), 8.04 for self-rated vision concerns (95 % CI 5.44–11.90, p < 0.001) and 1.86 for self-rated health (95 % CI 1.16–2.98, p = 0.010). ConclusionGlaucoma status is associated with poorer self-assessments of vision, vision concerns, and health. This suggests that individuals with glaucoma experience more vision and health challenges than people without the disease and the three assessments can be used as tools to characterize glaucoma patients in risk profiling efforts.

Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with glaucoma in a tertiary eye facility in Ghana

Background: Ghana has been reported to have the second highest prevalence of glaucoma worldwide.Aim: Because of glaucoma causing numerous cases of irreversible blindness, there is the need for baseline data for glaucoma characteristics among Ghanaians. This study was conducted to determine the demographic and clinical characteristics of glaucoma patients in a tertiary eye centre.Setting: The setting for this study is the eye clinic of the Agogo Presbyterian Hospital, which is situated in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.Methods: The medical records of patients who attended the eye centre from January 2013 to December 2017 were reviewed. The data collected included the demographic variables and clinical characteristics of patients diagnosed with glaucoma.Results: Of the 1100 medical records reviewed, 311 were diagnosed with glaucoma. Of the 311 patients, 159 (51.1%) were males and 152 (48.9%) were females, with their ages ranging from 11 to 104 years (mean = 60 ± 18.1 years). Primary open-angle, secondary, juvenile and primary angle-closure glaucomas accounted for 81.6%, 11%, 3.8% and 3.6%, respectively, of all cases of glaucoma. The average intra-ocular pressure was 28.2 ± 11 mmHg. The cup-to-disc ratio and visual acuity varied significantly among the various ethnic groups (p 0.05), while the average intra-ocular pressure did not (p 0.05). Timolol was the first line of treatment for 91.4% cases of glaucoma.Conclusion: Primary open-angle glaucoma is the predominant type in this population, with the clinical characteristics of visual acuity and cup-to-disc ratio varying among the different Ghanaian ethnic groups. There is a need for population-based epidemiologic studies to validate the data collected in this hospital-based study.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPERIENCE OF CLIENTS DIAGNOSED WITH GLAUCOMA IN TWO SELECTED EYE CLINICS IN ACCRA, GHANA

The aim of this study was to find out the prevalence of psychosocial problems among persons living with glaucoma and also find out whether socio-demographic characteristics of glaucoma patients significantly affect their levels of psychosocial distress. The cross-sectional survey design was chosen. One hundred (100) patients with glaucoma were selected from two Eye clinics in Accra as the sampled population. One-Way ANOVA, independent t-test and Pearson correlation were used for data analysis. Results from the analysis showed that 99% of the patients reported mild to extremely severe depression. One percent (1%) of the sample reported normal depression levels. It was also observed from the analysis that 75% of the patients reported mild to extremely severe anxiety levels and, 25% reported normal anxiety levels. On stress levels, 45% of glaucoma patients reported mild to severe stress levels whilst 55% of reported normal stress levels. Further analysis showed that female glaucoma patients reported higher depression, anxiety and stress levels than male glaucoma patients, younger glaucoma patients reported higher depression, anxiety and stress levels than older glaucoma patients. However, no statistically significant differences exist among Glaucoma patients who are employed, unemployed and self-employed in their depression and anxiety levels but differed significantly on their stress levels. No statistically significant differences exist among Glaucoma patients who are single, married, widowed and divorced in their depression and anxiety levels but differed significantly on their stress levels. Additionally, there is a significant positive relationship between patients’ social distress and emotional distress (DASS). It is concluded that there is substantial level of psychosocial distress among patients with glaucoma. Patients’ age, sex and marital status significantly affecting their psychosocial distress and therefore, psychosocial care should be included in the healthcare of these patients.