Abstract
Purpose :
Vision impairment (VI) is associated with adverse health outcomes and disability in older adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of different visual functions with the probability of hospitalization in a nationally representative sample of older U.S. adults.
Methods :
We used data from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), a nationally representative survey of age-eligible Medicare beneficiaries. Round 11 NHATS, collected in 2021, included objective measures of presenting binocular presenting distance and near visual acuity and contrast sensitivity. Weighted logistic regression models were used to analyze the association between VI and hospitalization in the year prior to vision assessments, and to estimate marginal predicted probabilities of hospitalization. Models were adjusted for socioeconomic, demographic, and health-related covariates and accounted for NHATS complex survey design to make nationally representative parameter estimates.
Results :
The analytic sample included 2,960 respondents with a median age of 81 years, 45% male and 82% non-Hispanic White. The predicted probabilities of any (≥1) and recurrent (>1) hospitalization for those with any VI was 19.2% (15.9-22.6) and 7.2% (4.8-9.7) compared to probabilities of 16.7% (14.9, 18.6) and 4.1% (3.1-5.2) for those with no VIs. The odds of recurrent hospitalization were significantly higher among those with near VI (OR=1.9 [1.1, 3.1], p=0.02). There were no significant associations between other types of VI and any recurrent hospitalization.
Conclusions :
Near VI is significantly associated with recurrent hospitalization in older U.S. adults. Future studies are needed to determine whether interventions to improve near vision, for example with low-cost correction of presbyopia, affect the odds of recurrent hospitalization among older adults.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.