Cross-sectional study of visual impairment in Shunyi district of Beijing, China / 中华实验眼科杂志

ABSTRACT

Background Visual impairment influent the life quality of patient and bring about the economical burden to their families and society.Epidemiology survey of the prevalence and main causes of visual impairment is the basis of the prevention of blindness.Objective The goal of this survey was to investigate the visual impairment in the subjects aged 40 years or older living in Shunyi district and assist in the design of intervention programs.Methods A cross-sectional survey was performed in this study.Cluster sampling was used to randomly select 4549 individuals aged ≥40 years in Shunyi district,and visual impairment was evaluated based on WHO criteria and analyzed based on the 10-year interval groups.The questionnaire,best corrected visual acuity (BCVA)and comprehensive eye examination were provided for eligible residents.To evaluate the independentassociation of significant sociodemographic variables with visual impairment,a regression model was constructed including age,sex and education level.This study was approved by the Ethic Committee of Peking University Medical Department.Written informed consent was signed by each subject before any medial survey.Results A total of 4167 subjects participated in this survey with the response rate of 91.6％.The age of the subjects ranged from 40-94 years(mean56.61±11.10 years).The numbers of visual impairment was 161 with the prevalence 3.9％.Trend x2 test showed that the number and percentage of visual impairment were elevated as the increase of age,showing a significantly difference among different age groups(x2 =159.487,P＜0.01).The prevalence rate of visual impairment in 70 and older group was 15 times more than that of 60-69-year-old group(OR =0.114,95％ CI0.056-0.234).No significant difference was found between gender and prevalence of visual impairment(OR =0.901,95％ CI0.627 -1.295).The prevalence rate of visual impairment in illiterate group was 5.5 fold more than that of educated group (OR =2.743,95％ CI1.830-4.111).Conclusions Ageing and low education degree are the important factors of visual impairment.Education attainment is an independent protective factor of visual impairment.