Awareness About Glaucoma and Associated Factors Among Glaucoma Patients Visiting Munawar Memorial Hospital Chakwal

Abstract

Glaucoma is a significant public health problem worldwide blindness after cataract is attributed to this ophthalmic disease. The resultant blindness is mostly irreversible. Its earlier detection is imperative to prevent blindness. Objective: To ascertain the awareness about glaucoma and associated factors among glaucoma patients in association with family history. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive hospital base study was done among 21 glaucoma patients at Munawar Memorial Hospital Chakwal from October – December 2021. The patients were enrolled through consecutive sampling. Data were gathered from the patients through self-structured questionnaire pertaining to demographics, family history, association of glaucoma with blindness, reversibility of resultant blindness, treatment in addition to prevention and cure of blindness. Data were analysed by SPSS version 25.0. Apart from descriptive statistics, Fisher’s exact test was also applied to measure the association of family history of glaucoma with other factors. p<0.05 was taken as significant. Results: Of the 21glaucoma patients, most (63%) were males and 11 patients had positive family history. Overall, 25% patients knew about the disease. Mean age of the respondents was 50.52 ± 22.5 years. Almost 72.2% of the patients with positive family history were aware about the prevention of blindness resulting from glaucoma (p<0.05). on the other hand, 81.8% of the patients with negative family knew about cure. 81.8% of the patients knew the purpose of treatment (p<0.05). Conclusions: There was scarcity of knowledge about glaucoma among patients. Despite the positive family history, knowledge of glaucoma patients about their disease was deficient.