Abstract
Purpose :
Existing research on children with low vision has been limited mainly to investigation of functional vision and participation. The aim of this cross-sectional qualitative study was to obtain and analyse output from focus groups with children with vision impairment and related persons to develop themes on vision-related participation restrictions, personal and environmental contextual factors that impact on children with vision impairment to better understand its impact for delivery of services.
Methods :
Children aged from 8 to 17 years with vision impairment in regular or special schools, their peers with normal vision (age 8-17 years), parents, teachers, and vision rehabilitation specialists participated in 74 focus groups in urban and rural areas of southern India; all were lead by the same person. Statements were recorded and entered into a database. Three levels of sorting were conducted to group items from all participants. For triangulation 3 people conducted the final grouping of statements into categories and collaborated to finalise the inclusion and grouping of statements.
Results :
A total of 537 people (194 children with low vision, 212 peers, 28 parents, 51 teachers and 12 rehabilitation specialists) generated 1,617 statements. After the three stages of sorting to group similar items, 522 items were grouped in 4 major areas: body functions (sensory, vision, mental), activities and participation (social, personal interactions, learning and applying knowledge, mobility), environmental (attitudes of others, support and relationships, products and services, policies) and personal factors. The further sorting of statements by 20 participants (including 12 children with low vision) resulted in > 100 themes. Of the 522 statements 76% were rated as important and 72% relevant. The majority of statements were barriers with attitudinal statements most common.
Conclusions :
It was not only vision related statements of a person’s activity and participation but the physical, social and attitudinal, environment and personal contextual factors that were of importance for inclusion. The next stage using concept mapping will help develop a questionnaire which could be used to guide low vision rehabilitation service delivery and setting policy for inclusion of children with vision impairment.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.