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. 2023 Jul 5;11(13):1941.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare11131941.

Screening for Patients with Visual Acuity Loss in Primary Health Care: A Cross Sectional Study in a Deprived Hungarian Population

Rahul Naresh Wasnik  1   2 , Veronika Győri-Dani  3 , Ferenc Vincze  1 , Magor Papp  4 , Anita Pálinkás  5 , János Sándor  1   5
Affiliations

Screening for Patients with Visual Acuity Loss in Primary Health Care: A Cross Sectional Study in a Deprived Hungarian Population

Rahul Naresh Wasnik et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

Screening for visual acuity loss (VAL) is not applied systematically because of uncertain recommendations based on observations from affordable countries. Our study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of primary health care-based screening. A cross-sectional investigation was carried out among adults who did not wear glasses and did not visit an ophthalmologist in a year (N = 2070). The risk factor role of sociodemographic factors and the cardiometabolic status for hidden VAL was determined by multivariable linear regression models. The prevalence of unknown VAL of at least 0.5 was 3.7% and 9.1% in adults and in the above-65 population. Female sex (b = 1.27, 95% CI: 0.35; 2.18), age (b = 0.15, 0.12; 0.19), and Roma ethnicity (b = 2.60, 95% CI: 1.22; 3.97) were significant risk factors. Higher than primary school (bsecondaryschoolwithoutgraduation = -2.06, 95% CI: -3.64; -0.47; and bsecondaryschoolwithgraduation = -2.08, 95% CI: -3.65; -0.51), employment (b = -1.33, 95% CI: -2.25; 0.40), and properly treated diabetes mellitus (b = -2.84, 95% CI: -5.08; -0.60) were protective factors. Above 65 years, female sex (b = 3.85, 95% CI: 0.50; 7.20), age (b = 0.39, 95% CI: 0.10; 0.67), Roma ethnicity (b = 24.79, 95% CI: 13.83; 35.76), and untreated diabetes (b = 7.30, 95% CI: 1.29; 13.31) were associated with VAL. Considering the huge differences between the health care and the population's social status of the recommendation-establishing countries and Hungary which represent non-high-income countries, the uncertain recommendation of VAL screening should not discourage general practitioners from organizing population-based screening for VAL in non-affordable populations.

Keywords: deprivation; general health check; primary care; screening; visual acuity loss.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Process of sampling.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Demographic structure of the population targeted by screening, and the yield of screening across strata.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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