Abstract
Purpose :
To report the results of first nationwide rapid assessment of avoidable blindness (RAAB) survey in Maldives that estimated the prevalence and causes of blindness, cataract surgical coverage, visual outcome following cataract surgery and barriers to uptake of available cataract surgical services among the people of age 50 years and older.
Methods :
A total of 3,100 study participants in 62 clusters in all 20 atolls of the country were selected according to probability proportionate to size for the study. In a house-to-house visits, the study particiapts were enrolled and examined in the selcted study clusters by 2 teams led by ophthalmologists. The data collection was done in mRAAB software loaded on a smartphone.
Results :
The age-gender standardized prevalence of blindness was 2.0% (95%CI:1.5-2.6). Cataract was leading cause of blindness (51.4 %) and uncorrected refractive error was the leading cause of visual impairment (50.9%). Cataract Surgical Coverage was 86% among the cataract blind eyes and 93.5% among the cataract blind persons. Good visual outcome (Visual acuity > 6/18) among the cataract operated eyes was 67.9% presenting and 76.6% best corrected visual acuity. Close to half (48.1%)Maldivian people chose to get operated in the neighbouring countries . Two important barriers for not availing the current cataract surgical services in country were “did not feel” (29.7%), and “treatment deferred” (33.3%).
Conclusions :
The visual outcome of cataract surgery is currently below the WHO prescribed standards. Maldives need further human and skill capacity building for improving the cataract surgical outcome that will generate enough confidence for the eye care services in the country.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.