Prevalence and causes of visual impairment among Saudi adults of Arar, Northern Border Region of Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence and causes of visual impairment (VI) among Saudi adults in Arar City, the capital of Northern Border Region of Saudi Arabia.

Methods: This population-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 705 Saudi adults aged 18 years and older. All participants underwent ophthalmic examination including visual acuity (VA) testing, auto refraction, intraocular pressure (IOP) measurement and fundus examination.

Results: In the present study 166 cases (23.5%) were found to have VI, while only 12 cases (1.7%) were considered as blind following the WHO definitions. Cataract was found to be the main cause of VI [51 cases (30.7%)] followed by refractive error (RE) [41 cases (24.7%)] and diabetic retinopathy (DR) [22 cases (13.2%)]. Seventy one cases of the studied subjects (10.07 %) had shown unilateral VI, while 13 cases (1.8%) had shown unilateral blindness with the other eye normal (VA ≥ 20/20).

Conclusion: Visual impairment is highly prevalent among Saudi adults in Arar city. Cataract, refractive error and diabetic retinopathy are the main 3 leading causes. Better plans for diagnosis and treatment should be considered to decrease the magnitude of the problem.

doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.331.11871

How to cite this:Parrey MR, Alswelmi FK. Prevalence and causes of visual impairment among Saudi adults. Pak J Med Sci. 2017;33(1):167-171.   doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.331.11871

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.