Public awareness about common ocular diseases among a sample of Egyptian population

Abstract

Background Globally, the most common causes of blindness in adults are cataracts, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. Inadequate knowledge of these conditions leads to lag in medical advice requisition, losing the opportunity for prevention and early intervention with an increased rate of disease complications. Aim This study aimed to detect the level of public awareness about common eye problems in Egypt to help build strategies to prevent complications related to these eye problems. Patients and methods This is a prospective cross-sectional analytical study that used a pre-tested e-questionnaire to collect data from the study participants during the period from September 2022 to June 2023 at Kasr Alainy School of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt. A Google form was created, and participants were invited through social media. It included four sections: socio-demographic characteristics, medical history of study participants, knowledge about common ocular diseases, and sources of gaining knowledge. Results The study included 802 participants, 54.2% of them were females, more than 55% of them were between the ages of 18–30 years, and 74.4% were university graduates. Awareness of cataracts, glaucoma, corneal opacity, diabetic retinopathy, and age-related macular degeneration was reported in 45.7, 34.8, 38.3, 80, and 77.5% of the study participants, respectively. Physicians and social media were the most common efficient sources of gaining knowledge. Higher education and working in a medical profession, especially physicians and pharmacists were associated with higher knowledge scores. Conclusion Low levels of knowledge of most of the blinding conditions among the study participants raise the importance of adopting health education programs by our healthcare systems taking into consideration that physicians and social media were among the most convenient routes to reach the targeted population.