Amblyopia treatment knowledge cognition of Iranian practitioners in 2012

ABSTRACT

Amblyopia is considered as one of the most prevalent vision problems in pediatrics age [1-5%]. Recently, new methods in amblyopia treatment were reported in Amblyopia Treatment Study [ATS'].The objective of this study was to recognize amblyopia treatment knowledge of Iranian ophthalmologists and optometrists which are responsible for amblyopia treatment in our and other countries. This cross sectional study was performed during the Iranian Society of Ophthalmology annual meeting in Tehran in 2012 through questionnaire containing demographic information and 20 closed-answer questions based on ATS results. The questions were classified into seven categories and the sum of correct scores was 100. Optometrists and pediatric ophthalmologists were considered as the group 1 [153 participants], other practitioners [general ophthalmologists and other subspecialists] were regarded as the group 2 [256 participants]. Criteria for inadequate, fair and good knowledge were considered by scores of < 50, 50 to 70, and >70 respectively. Overall, 409 out of a total of 600 questionnaires were completed [response rate 68.1%]. Mean scores of the group 1 were significantly higher than the group 2 in all 7 categories of questions and in 5 of them the differences were statistically significant. The worst and best scores were related to prescription of atropine [12%] and visual acuity improvement with glasses alone [93%], respectively. Scores for other questions were about 50%. There was no relationship between practice status and the number of referral amblyopic cases per week with the level of knowledge. In all categories except prescription of Atropine and recurrence, mean scores of females were more than the male participants. Knowledge about amblyopia therapy seems to be overall inadequate and should be improved by more education. We suggest paying more attention to new modified methods of amblyopia treatment and increased discussion of such method in annual and CME meetings