Eye health profile of affordable eye care service users

ABSTRACT

Clinical relevance

Knowledge of the typical eye health profile of patients experiencing social or economic disadvantage is useful for health care modelling.

Background

The aim of this work is to profile the ocular health and sociodemographic characteristics of Australian College of Optometry service users of all ages and to explore the relationships between key sociodemographic characteristics and eye health.

Methods

For 3093 eye examinations, best-corrected distance visual acuity and mean spherical equivalent refractive error were tested non-parametrically by clinic category, remoteness area, number of co-morbidities, gender and indigenous status, also correlated against age and socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage. Covariates of interest were entered into linear mixed models of visual acuity and mean spherical equivalent refractive error, controlling for age. Risk estimates are reported for visual impairment (defined as ≤6/12 best-corrected distance visual acuity in one or both eyes) and ocular diagnoses.

Results

Visual impairment is more prevalent amongst service users examined in domiciliary settings. Increasing co-morbidities were associated with poorer best-corrected distance visual acuity. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service users had lower visual impairment prevalence overall but proportionally fewer aged ≥50 years attended for eye care, compared to non-indigenous.

Conclusions

Domiciliary eye examinations detect remediable visual impairment. Federal public health interventions delivered by the Australian College of Optometry for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander eye care appear effective but may not reach all aged ≥ 50 years; further research is required. Identification of multiple co-morbidities should prompt optometrists to tailor public health messages and signpost to low vision services earlier.

KEYWORDS:

• Ageing
• eye care
• indigenous health
• sight loss
• vision impairment

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Ali Almasi from the National Vision Research Institute, who supported the data extraction and cleaning process through scripting.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.