Public Awareness regarding Common Eye Diseases among Saudi Adults in Riyadh City: A Quantitative Study

Abstract

Aim The current study aimed to evaluate the knowledge of eye disease and awareness of eye care among the Saudi adults and to explore existing eye-related misconceptions in the community. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in Riyadh city during May and June 2016. A self-administered anonymous online questionnaire was used to explore the most common misconceptions related to eye diseases and eye care. Results Out of 1000 individuals, only 711 (71.1%) participant responses were received. The participants' acceptable knowledge (score ≥50%) was high about the eye problem in diabetes (88.6%), ocular trauma (81.2%), and other general eye diseases (91.3%), whereas low about refractive errors (63%), pediatric eye problems (51.5%), and glaucoma (14.8%). The variation in knowledge about specific ocular morbidities was significant (p < 0.001). The majority of participants reported sources of information about the common eye diseases and eye care encountered from the community, internet-based resources, and social media. Conclusions The majority of the participants had awareness about the common eye diseases, whereas low percentage of participant's awareness about specific condition of eye diseases. Public eye health awareness should be more focused on social media and the internet to be able to cover the younger individuals of the community.

Public Awareness Regarding Glaucoma in Hail, Saudi Arabia

“…On the other hand, the previous study about public awareness regarding common eye diseases among Saudi adults shows that 13.2% have an eye/systemic problem, and 59.2% have a family member with an eye/systemic disease. (9) There was a large proportion of people (66.8%) with a poor level of knowledge about glaucoma in our study which was similar to another study which was held in southwest Nigeria which shows that >4/5th of them had never heard of glaucoma. (7) There was also a study in 2017 among Saudi adults, which shows that glaucoma-related knowledge was poor (85.2%) which was explained by that glaucoma is not very common eye disease to the community in Saudi Arabia in comparing to other eye diseases.…”

“…8Also with a higher percentage of singles, (66.0%) comparing with married (31.0%), A study was done in Riyadh about common eye diseases included a higher percentage of married participant (64.3%) compared to singles (32.5%). (9) The majority of them were college students (51.1%) and Employees were (38.3%). However, another study that was conducted in Southeast Nigeria, it included a higher percentage of employees (25.9%) to the level of students (9.2%), whereas the unemployed percentage (7.3%) was similar to ours (7.6 %).…”

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“…The main findings of this study were that the overall knowledge related common eye diseases in Sulaimani was poor, in which 40.5% of participants within poor knowledge level about eye disease, this results is similar to other study result assessed knowledge level of eye disease among Hong Kong Chinese population [25] and India [26]. This result of our study disagree with other study results in Saudi Arabia [27] and Yamen [28]. Poor knowledge about common eye disease and their complication cause delay of chance of early diagnosis and treatment, thus more prone to increase rate of blindness.…”

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“…Additionally, married participants were knowledgeable (73.2%) more than singles (63.5%). This is could be explained by higher levels of awareness and attitude regarding eye diseases among Saudi adults [ 28 ].…”