Prevalence and causes of visual impairment in a rural North‐east China adult population: a population‐based survey in Bin County, Harbin

Abstract

ABSTRACT.Purpose: To investigate the prevalence and causes of visual impairment in a rural population in north-east China. Methods: A population-based study was conducted within Bin County, Harbin of north-east China. Low vision and blindness were defined using the World Health Organization categories of visual impairment. The prevalence of visual impairment was estimated, and causes were identified based on best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) as well as presenting visual acuity (VA). Results: Out of 5764 people, 4956 (86.01%) aged older than 40 participated in the study. The prevalence of visual impairment, low vision and blindness based on presenting VA was 9.6% (BCVA, 6.6%), 7.7% (BCVA, 4.9%) and 1.9% (BCVA, 1.7%), respectively. Taking the presenting VA, cataract (44%) was the most common cause for visual impairment followed by uncorrected refractive error (24%), treatable causes of visual impairment accounted for 68% of the total cases. Cataract (59%) and glaucoma (15%) were leading causes for blindness based on presenting VA. According to BCVA, cataract was the leading cause of visual impairment and blindness (58% and 60%, respectively), followed by glaucoma (17% and 15%, respectively). The prevalence of visual impairment was higher among women than men (p < 0.0001) and increasing with age (p < 0.0001) and decreasing with increasing education level (p = 0.0075). Conclusion: Visual impairment was a serious public health problem in this rural population, with most of it easily remedied. Results highlighted the need for visual impairment prevention programs to an increasing number of elderly people, with a special emphasis on female and those with little or no education.

The Impact of Self-reported Visual Disability on Quality of Life among Older Persons in a Rural Area of Northeast Thailand: A Follow-up Study

“…The high prevalence found in Thailand could be due, in part, to limited access to health care in general for those living in rural areas in developing countries, as well as, a high rate of uncorrected refractive error including presbyopia (Holden, Fricke, Ho, Wong, Schlenther, Cronjé, Burnett, Papas, Naidoo, & Frick, 2008) as is anticipated for this part of the world (Dandona & Dandona, 2006;Holden et al, 2008). A number of findings in the current study differed from those reported in the previous study by LaGrow et al (2011b), but were similar to those reported elsewhere (Chia, Wang, Rochtchina, Smith, Cumming, & Mitchell, 2004;Evans, Fletcher, Wormald, Ng, Stirling, Smeeth, Breeze, Bulpitt, Nunes, Jones, & Tulloch, 2002;Horowitz et al, 2005;Jin & Wong, 2008;LaGrow et al, 2009;Michon, Lau, Chan, & Ellwein, 2002;Nirmalan, Thulasiraj, Maneksha, Rahmathullah, Ramakrishnan, Padmavathi, Munoz, & Ellwein, 2002;Oye & Kuper, 2007;Song, Sun, Shao, Zhou, Kang, Sui, & Yuan, 2010;J. J. Wang, Mitchell, & Smith, 2000;Wong, Chong, Wong, Rosman, Aung, Loo, Shen, Loon, Tan, Tai, & Saw, 2008).…”

“…J. Wang, Mitchell, & Smith, 2000;Wong, Chong, Wong, Rosman, Aung, Loo, Shen, Loon, Tan, Tai, & Saw, 2008). As in these studies, those who had difficulty with seeing were found to be older (Horowitz et al, 2005;Jin & Wong, 2008), disproportionately female (Evans et al, 2002;Horowitz et al, 2005;Michon et al, 2002;Nirmalan et al, 2002;Oye & Kuper, 2007;Song et al, 2010;Wong et al, 2008), and to have a poorer perception of health (Chia et al, 2004;LaGrow et al, 2009;J. J. Wang et al, 2000) and lower rating of QOL (Bekibele & Gureje, 2008a;LaGrow, Alpass, Stephens, & Towers, 2011a;LaGrow et al, 2011b;Lamoureux, Fenwick, Moore, Klaic, Borschmann, & Hill, 2009;Nutheti, Shamanna, Nirmalan, Keeffe, Krishnaiah, Rao, & Thomas, 2006;Tran, Mahdi, Sivasubramaniam, Gudlavalleti, Gilbert, Shah, Ezelum, Abubakar, & Bankole, 2011;C.…”

Visual Impairment in White, Chinese, Black, and Hispanic Participants from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis Cohort

“…[2,15-16,18-19,21-29] However, the differential impact of sex on visual impairment has been inconsistent in the literature with some studies finding no differences between men and women. [14-15,19,22,25] Among studies where significant sex differences were present, women were more likely to have visual impairment compared to men, [2,16,23-24,27-29] consistent with our results. In the present study, older age was a consistent predictor of increased visual impairment, but the effects were most pronounced in men and varied by racial/ethnic group, suggesting that the demographic characteristics (age, sex, and ethnicity) of the population may interact and result in different prevalence of impairment which, without adequate adjustment, could obfuscate comparisons of prevalence across countries.…”

The Prevalence of Visual Impairment in Older Adults in Mainland China: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…However, the result should be carefully interpreted. Eleven surveys performed in East and Central China, including Beijing (n = 2) [6,7], Jiangsu (n = 2) [6,15], Guangdong (n = 2) [6,16], Heilongjiang (n = 2) [6,17], Hebei (n = 2) [6,18], Jiangxi (n = 1) [6],were published in English. Only 1 study, which included 3 surveys in Western China, was published in English [6].…”