Understanding Presbyopia in Asmara: Prevalence, Association with Refractive Error, and Age-Based Addition

Abstract

Background

Presbyopia is an age-related progressive decrease of near vision, corrected by near addition glasses. These age-appropriate glasses, however, vary across different geographical locations and populations. But there is no existing information on the age-based addition for Asmara and high number of uncorrected presbyopes, so this study determined the required age-based addition for the presbyopes in Asmara.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was conducted on patients aged 35–60 years who visited all eye centers in the city. Patients with best-corrected visual acuity in both eyes better than 6/9 were included in the study. Near add was calculated using Monocular Estimation Method (MEM) and amplitude of accommodation results. Data entry and analysis were performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences v. 20.

Results

This study included 1310 participants of whom 48.5% were females and 51.5% were males. The prevalence of presbyopia was found to be 74.1% out of which 44% were females. There were 35.6% of the participants with a previous prescription for glasses, though only 24% of the participants presented with glasses on. Among the different occupational categories, laborers were the ones who had the highest number of presbyopes (79.5%), office workers (73%), and housewives (68.7%). The mean age of those with presbyopes was 49.5 ± 5.8 years. Multivariable analysis performed for presbyopia showed that older age and female sex were associated with a higher likelihood of presbyopia (<0.005). An addition table was prepared separately for males and females. On post-hoc tests, no significant association was found between the given and the different refractive status.

Conclusion

The study showed that there is a high level of uncorrected presbyopes in the city, so the availability of refraction sites and glasses accessibility needs to increase. The near addition demand for this population varies from the previously stated amount in other countries. Therefore, guidelines specifically prepared for a society are necessary.

Keywords:

• presbyopia
• near addition glasses
• Asmara
• amplitude of accommodation

Abbreviations

AA, amplitude of accommodation; DS, diopter spherical; MAR, minimum angle of resolution; MEM, monocular estimation method; RAF, Royal Air Force; VA, visual acuity.

Supporting Documents

The data-set supporting the findings of this article is available from the corresponding authors.

Ethics Statement

Ethical approval for the study was issued from the Eritrean Ministry of Health.

Acknowledgment

The authors thank the clinical staff who supported this work at Brhan Ayni National Eye Referral Hospital, Biet Mekae Community Hospital and Godaif Community Hospital.

Author Contributions

All authors made a significant contribution to the work reported whether that is in the conception, study design, execution, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation, or in all these areas; took part in drafting, revising or critically reviewing the article; gave final approval of the version to be published; have agreed on the journal to which the article has been submitted; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Additional information

Funding

Data were collected from the above-mentioned hospitals with no incentive or financial support from any organization.