Background: Cataract is the most common age-related eye disease and the most treatable cause of visual loss in adults. It is responsible for 52.6% of blindness and 20.6% of visual impairment in southwestern region of Saudi Arabia.
Objective: To assess the knowledge of Saudi population in Makkah city about cataract.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, between April and September 2011. It includes a representative sample of the Saudi population in Makkah city who were 40 years or older. Questionnaires consisting of items assessing the knowledge of cataract were administered to the participants. They were attending Primary Health Care Centers in Makkah city.
Results: The study included 384 persons, 81% were men and 19% women. Most of them (72.4%) did not know that cataract is an increase in the opacity of the lens and 78% did not know that cataract can lead to blindness. Majority (90.6%) of population was not aware that the incidence of cataract increases by positive family history and 76.4% that the incidence of cataract increases by age. Almost two-thirds of them (65.9%) did not know that it is treated surgically when it affects vision.
Conclusion: Saudi population in Makkah city aged 40 years or above possessed poor knowledge about cataract. Therefore, efforts should be made to increase the knowledge and awareness of the general public about the disease.
Key words: Cataract, eye disease, knowledge, Saudi Arabia
scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.
The articles in Bibliomed are open access articles licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
We use cookies and other tracking technologies to work properly, to analyze our website traffic, and to understand where our visitors are coming from. More InfoGot It!
