Abstract
Purpose :
Prevention of blindness was not included in the millennium development goals (MDGs) even though there are plenty of evidence demonstrating the correlation between the property and blindness. We have evaluated the disproportionate magnitude of the socio-economic endowment of long-term community development project on blind patients by measuring the effectiveness of surgical intervention.
Methods :
The study is a one-year postoperative follow-up research measuring the effect of cataract surgery in the impoverished area conducted from in Mwandama MVP. Quality of Life along with Expenditure and Self-rated Wealth was measured on Surgically Treated Group (STG), Low Vision Group (LVG), and Normal Vision Group (NVG). There were 167 (STG: 58, LVG: 48, NVG: 60) and 144 (STG: 49, LVG: 49, NVG: 44) village dwellers participated. Difference in Differences (DID) was used for the analysis, and demographic factors such as age, sex, and marital status along with socio economic factors such as level of education, income, and occupation were used as control variables.
Results :
The basic demographic profiles of the cataract and normal vision group were not significantly different. There was significant increase in the score of EQ-5D and Visual Function related Quality of Life (VFQoL) after a year of the surgery in the STG (p=0.012, p=0.006), and the difference from NVG was not noticed at the endline. Scores regarding expenditure was lower in the STG compare to the LVG, but there was statistically significant increase in the group (p=0.012) at the endline, which is not very different from the one of NVG (p=0.64). NVG significantly tend to have more assets tham the other groups (p=0.008) from the beginning, and this fact does not change at the endline either. However, there has been a drastic change in the self-related wealth within a year after the surgery, which means subjective economical satisfaction of the surgery is high (p=0.002).
Conclusions :
Even at the height of a long-term development program, the blind individuals received an out of proportion socio-economic benefit. This study evaluated the economical effectiveness of the cataract surgery by adopting DID model. Providing restoring vision treatment can make more people receive the benefits and achievement of community development projects, an in turn, it will increase economic impact.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.