Knowledge and Awareness of Age Related Eye Disease among People over 45 Years of Age in Tehran: A Population-based Survey

To determine the general population’s knowledge and awareness about cataract, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy (DR) in Tehran, the most populated and capital city of Iran, in order to assess the need for health education programs.

This cross-sectional population-based survey was conducted during 2010 and a structured questionnaire was filled by 5 trained interviewers via telephone conversation for non-institutionalized inhabitants aged 45 years. The phone numbers were selected with a systematic random sampling among different regions of the city after providing sampling frame from the telecommunication center. In each house we only enrolled one person according to the scheduled table with defined sex and age groups.Awareness was defined as having heard about each disease and knowledge was acceptable if participantsstated at least a short correct related sentence.

Of 1,084 eligible people including 574 women (53%) and 510 men (47%), 957 ubjects completed the interview (response rate = 88.3%). Among the participants 60.2% believed visual impairment (VI) has high or very high effect on daily performance. On the contrary, 8.4%, 16.2% and 15.1% said that VI has none, little or moderate effect, respectively. The percentage of awareness for glaucoma, cataract and DR were 46.6, 82.9% and 86.2% respectively, and 19.2% and 57.3% had knowledge about glaucoma and cataract. Only 22.6%, 77.2% and 41.6% knew that glaucoma, cataract and DR are treatable.

Although the majority of people over 45 years of age in the capital city had heard of cataract and DR, the total knowledge about all assessed diseases and their treatment was insufficient.