Abstract
Purpose :
The Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) 2017 is a nationwide assessment of the lived experience of persons with disabilities, across a variety of social determinants of health. Here, we examined the impact of demographic characteristics (age, severity of vision loss, other disabilities) on access to healthcare services, prescription drugs, and help with daily living tasks for Canadians living with vision loss.
Methods :
The population sample for the CSD was derived from individuals who indicated they had difficulty with activities of daily living in the 2016 Canadian Census. Respondents were 15 years of age and above, and identified with a functional limitation, and represented more than 6 million (n = 6,246,640) Canadians. A subset of the larger dataset was created with individuals with seeing disability (n = 1,519,840) and weighted descriptive analyses were performed using SPSS.
Results :
Access to allied healthcare services. Respondents with vision loss were most likely to receive physiotherapy, massage or chiropractic services (27.9%), compared to 17.2% accessing psychology or social work services, 6.8% accessing support group services, 4.5% accessing nursing care at home, and 2.9% accessing occupational therapy services. Adults under 65 were more likely to access physiotherapy, massage, chiropractic, psychology or social work services; conversely, adults over 65 were more likely to access support group services or nursing care at home. 54.5% of those with sight loss did not access healthcare services.
Prescription medication. 72.8% of the Canadian vision loss population take prescription drugs at least once per week; 66% of respondents under 65 compared to 85.2% for those over 65. 13.1% of Canadians with vision loss were unable to purchase prescription medications because of cost. 13.3% of Canadians with vision loss took prescription medications less often because of cost.
Help with daily living tasks. 54.9% of respondents received help with daily activities (average of 3.5 activities). Age, age of onset and number of disabilities were positively correlated with receiving help with daily activities.
Conclusions :
Age, age of onset and number of disabilities correlated significantly with access to allied healthcare services, prescription medication, and help with daily living tasks for Canadians with vision loss.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.