Publication:

Study of preventable causes of blindness in a tertiary care institute in Lucknow

Background World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019, released the estimates which show that approximately 80% of the causes of blindness and severely reduced visual acuity are preventable and avoidable. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of preventable causes of blindness in an OPD setup in the city of Lucknow.

Methods Descriptive cross-sectional study was done from January, 2019 to March, 2019 at the ophthalmology department OPD, Dr Ram Manohar lohia hospital, Lucknow. Patient presenting with complains of Blurring of vision or blindness during the defined OPD days at the study place, sample size- 550. Convenience sampling, all the eligible patients who were attending the OPD on defined days during the study period.

Results The current study found the prevalence of blindness in the OPD based patients to be 13.5% and 25% (WHO and NPCB standards) respectively which is higher than the other reported statistics and found cataract to be the single most contributor of cause of blindness in accordance with other literature.

Conclusions The study demonstrates that even after the implementation of a national program (NPCB), the prevalence of blindness continues to be on the higher side and cataract remains to the most common cause of preventable blindness.