Self‐rated eyesight among healthy older Australians: Baseline results of the ASPREE Longitudinal Study of Older Persons

Abstract

Background We aimed to describe the self‐reported level of eyesight amongst a cohort of relatively healthy older Australian adults, and to investigate associations between poorer self‐rated eyesight and demographic, health, and functional characteristics Methods The ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly (ASPREE) Longitudinal Study of Older Persons (ALSOP) study was embedded in a multisite trial which recruited independently living Australians from general practices (2010–2014). Self‐rated eyesight was recorded on a paper‐based questionnaire as Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, Very poor, or Completely blind at the baseline study wave Results Data from 14 592 participants (aged 70–95 years, 54.61% female) were included in this cross‐sectional analysis. Eighty percent of participants reported excellent or good eyesight (n = 11 677). People with complete blindness were precluded from enrolling but 299 participants (2.0%) reported poor or very poor eyesight, and 2616 rated their eyesight as fair (17.9%). Lower levels of eyesight were associated with being older, female, fewer years of formal education, a primary language other than English, smoking, and self‐reported macular degeneration, glaucoma, retinopathy, cataracts, and hearing problems (each p ≤ 0.021). People with lower levels of eyesight had a higher number of falls, frailty characteristics, and depressive symptoms, and lower mental and physical health functioning scores (each p < 0.001) Conclusions Whilst most of these healthy older Australians reported good or excellent eyesight, a notable minority reported poor or very poor eyesight, and this was associated with a range of poorer health measures. These findings support the need for additional resources to prevent vision loss and associated sequelae