Sociodemographic aspects and systemic diseases of cataract patients

Abstract

Sociodemographic analysis of 351 consecutive cataract patients operated on at the Oulu University Hospital in 1990 revealed that 30.0% of the patients lived alone at home, 62.0% lived with some other person and 7.9% were in institutions. The mean age was 70.6 +/- 12.4 years, the sex distribution (62.7% women, 37.3% men) corresponded with that in the general population of the same age. 78.8% of the patients had had surgery on the first eye, 29.0% of them had low vision or blindness (visual acuity less than 0.3 in the better eye). In the second eye surgery group (21.2% of the patients) low vision or blindness was found in 13.0%. Low vision was more common in institutionalized patients and in those with restricted mobility. In 80.9% of the operated eyes and in 41.5% of the fellow eyes the visual acuity was less than 0.3. 76.6% of the patients had medication for cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, asthma or mental disorders. Based on this survey the demand for cataract surgery is expected to increase in coming years. The majority would be suitable for day case surgery, but for patients living alone, having restricted mobility, poor general health, poor vision in the fellow eye or long distance to the hospital, hospitalization still seems to be a better alternative.

Visual impairment and general health among Danish cataract patients

“…On the basis of these investigations it seems justified to conclude that the final sample has not been violated by any major selection bias. Distribution of age and gender in our sample is similar to that reported in other recent studies of cataract extractions in Europe and Scandinavia (Courtney 1991;Haustermans et al 1992;Lumme & Laatikainen 1994;Midelfart & Aamo 1994;Ninn-Pedersen et al 1994a). In some of these studies the distribution of gender was found to be similar to the corresponding national population (Lumme & Laatikainen 1994;Ninn-Pedersen et al 1994a).…”

Women and men ‐ same eyes?

“…Because of that and because women in many countries live longer than their male counterparts, women are the predominant group among patients undergoing cataract surgery. The majority of the studies show a ratio of 2:l between female and male patients (Morgan & Schwab 1985;Bishara et al 1988;Midelfart & Aamo 1994;Ninn-Pedersen et al 1994a;Lumme & Laatikainen 1994;Stenevi et al 1995). At present, cataract surgery is one of the most frequently performed operations among adults (Leske & Sperduto 1983;Stenevi et al 1995) with an annual rate in the United States in excess of 1 million (Schein et al 1995).…”

“…This can be done only by a consistent evaluation of the results of cataract surgery according to sex. Such evaluation seems to be useful also because the patients with cataract may have other diseases (West 1991;Lumme & Laatikainen 1994;West & Valmadrid 1995) which may be unequally distributed among the females and males and which could represent a risk for complications. As shown by Richards et al (1986), the frequency of postoperative complications after cataract extraction was higher among women than men, but the reason for that was not clear.…”