Causes of Blindness in Irbid, Jordan

Abstract

To determine the most common causes of blindness and the age of onset of these conditions among Jordanians of Irbid, a study of all registered members in two societies for the care of the blind was carried out. Of all registered members, 185 individuals were blind according to the World Health Organization definition and satisfied our inclusion criteria. It was found that genetically determined causes made up 41% of the total causes. In 57% of the subjects, blindness occurred in the first two decades of life. The specific leading causes of blindness, in the order of their frequencies, were tapetoretinal degenerations as different variants of retinitis pigmentosa (17.6%), glaucomas (16%), diabetic retinopathy (13%), post-infection corneal scarring (11.5%), congenital cataract (8.8%) and uveitis (8%). The results reflect the satisfactory achievements in primary health care levels and the challenge to make specialized tertiary health care more accessible.

Causes of permanent severe visual impairment and blindness among Jordanian population

“…[ 11 ] In addition, our data support the data reported in 1996 that retinitis pigmentosa is the leading cause of blindness in Irbid, North Jordan. [ 4 ] The current study observed that diabetic retinopathy was the second most common cause of blindness in contrast to a study from China where it represents the sixth leading cause of blindness. [ 12 ] This might be related to a high frequency of the disease in Jordan due to consanguineous marriages and obesity (17.1%).…”

“…There are few published studies on the causes of blindness in Jordan. [ 2 3 4 5 ] These studies provided data about curable and incurable blindness in only two different regions of Jordan. Other study reported data about causes of blindness at a specific age group of population (elderly),[ 6 ] but data about incurable blindness for all age groups and from all regions of Jordan were not reported.…”

Causes of Blindness among Adult Jordanians: A Hospital-Based Study

“…Although trachoma remains the third commonest cause of blindness world wide (2), we encountered only one case as cause of blindness. Two earlier studies on blindness in Jordan found that trachoma is not a leading cause of blindness here (3,4). Numerous studies have implicated poverty, distance from water, the amount of water used by the household, the presence of flies and poor hygiene as risk factors for trachoma (24,25).…”

“…Although this study cannot be taken as indicative of the whole situation in Jordan it does inform us on the relative frequency of causes of blindness and the changing patterns compared to the scant previous figures for Jordan (3,4).…”

“…In 1986 a hospital-based study in Jordan showed that cataract was the leading cause of blindness, diabetic retinopathy ranking as the fifth cause (3). In 1996 another report from Jordan found diabetic retinopathy was the commonest cause of blindness above the age of 40 years in Northern Jordan (4). Most studies in developing countries (including the Middle East) show that diabetic retinopathy is not a leading cause of blindness, and it is preceded by other causes like cataract, corneal opacities and refractive errors (5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10).…”