Eye Health Service Uptake among People with Visual Impairment and Other Functional Difficulties in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Study with Short-Term Follow Up

Ruth Sanders, Ben Gascoyne, Paul Appleby, Syeda Asma Rashida and Emma Jolley
Additional contact information
Ruth Sanders: Sightsavers, Haywards Heath RH16 3BZ, UK
Ben Gascoyne: Sightsavers, Haywards Heath RH16 3BZ, UK
Paul Appleby: Sightsavers, Haywards Heath RH16 3BZ, UK
Syeda Asma Rashida: Sightsavers, Haywards Heath RH16 3BZ, UK
Emma Jolley: Sightsavers, Haywards Heath RH16 3BZ, UK

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 17, 1-12

Abstract: People with visual impairments are disproportionately likely to also have other impairments. However, little is known about whether these other impairments affect access to eye health services. This study among cataract and refractive error patients in four districts in Bangladesh explores the relationship between self-reported difficulties in hearing, mobility, self-care, communication and cognition domains, eye health service uptake, and location of initial eye health assessment. Cataract and refractive errors were diagnosed through ophthalmic clinical assessment, and the Washington Group Short Set (WG-SS) was used to ascertain difficulties in other functional domains. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to examine the relationship between functional difficulties and uptake of cataract and refractive error services. We found that people with self-reported functional difficulties were less likely to take up refractive error services compared to people with same need but with no functional difficulties, and that they were more than twice as likely to access surgical services after attending an outreach camp compared with a hospital facility. Since a high proportion of people attending eye health assessment services have difficulties in a range of functional domains, strategies to improve the uptake of hospital-based health services are urgently required.

Keywords: disability; service access; service uptake; eye health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/17/9068/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/17/9068/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:17:p:9068-:d:623687

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().