Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China

BACKGROUND: The aim of this cross-sectional study is to ascertain the prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment, uptake of cataract surgery among different ethnic groups in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. METHODS: Four thousand one hundred fifty people at 50 years and above from...

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Autores principales: Li, Yanping, Huang, Wenyong, Qiqige, Aoyun, Zhang, Hongwei, Jin, Ling, Ti, Pula, Yip, Jennifer, Xiao, Baixiang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5809952/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29433477
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-018-0705-6
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author Li, Yanping
Huang, Wenyong
Qiqige, Aoyun
Zhang, Hongwei
Jin, Ling
Ti, Pula
Yip, Jennifer
Xiao, Baixiang
author_facet Li, Yanping
Huang, Wenyong
Qiqige, Aoyun
Zhang, Hongwei
Jin, Ling
Ti, Pula
Yip, Jennifer
Xiao, Baixiang
author_sort Li, Yanping
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The aim of this cross-sectional study is to ascertain the prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment, uptake of cataract surgery among different ethnic groups in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. METHODS: Four thousand one hundred fifty people at 50 years and above from different minority ethnic groups were randomly selected for an eye examination. The four trained eye teams collected data using tumbling E visual chart, torch, portable slit lamp and direct ophthalmoscope in 2015. The World Health Organization’s definition of blindness and visual impairment (VI) was used to classify patients in each ethnic group. Data were analyzed by different minority groups and were compared with Han Chinese. RESULTS: 3977 (95.8%) out of 4150 people were examined. The prevalence of blindness from the study population was 1.7% (95% confidence interval: 1.3–2.2%).There was no significant difference in prevalence of blindness between Han Chinese and people of Khazak and other minority ethnic groups, nor, between male and female. Cataract was the leading course (65.5%) of blindness and uncorrected refractive error was the most common cause of VI (36.3%) followed by myopic retinopathy. The most common barrier to cataract surgery was lack of awareness of service availability. CONCLUSIONS: This study documented a low blindness prevalence among people aged 50 years and over comparing to prevalence identified through studies of other regions in China. It still indicates blindness and un-operated cataract as the significant public health issue, with no evidence of eye health inequalities, but some inequities in accessing to cataract surgery amongst ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang.
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spelling pubmed-58099522018-02-16 Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China Li, Yanping Huang, Wenyong Qiqige, Aoyun Zhang, Hongwei Jin, Ling Ti, Pula Yip, Jennifer Xiao, Baixiang BMC Ophthalmol Research Article BACKGROUND: The aim of this cross-sectional study is to ascertain the prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment, uptake of cataract surgery among different ethnic groups in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. METHODS: Four thousand one hundred fifty people at 50 years and above from different minority ethnic groups were randomly selected for an eye examination. The four trained eye teams collected data using tumbling E visual chart, torch, portable slit lamp and direct ophthalmoscope in 2015. The World Health Organization’s definition of blindness and visual impairment (VI) was used to classify patients in each ethnic group. Data were analyzed by different minority groups and were compared with Han Chinese. RESULTS: 3977 (95.8%) out of 4150 people were examined. The prevalence of blindness from the study population was 1.7% (95% confidence interval: 1.3–2.2%).There was no significant difference in prevalence of blindness between Han Chinese and people of Khazak and other minority ethnic groups, nor, between male and female. Cataract was the leading course (65.5%) of blindness and uncorrected refractive error was the most common cause of VI (36.3%) followed by myopic retinopathy. The most common barrier to cataract surgery was lack of awareness of service availability. CONCLUSIONS: This study documented a low blindness prevalence among people aged 50 years and over comparing to prevalence identified through studies of other regions in China. It still indicates blindness and un-operated cataract as the significant public health issue, with no evidence of eye health inequalities, but some inequities in accessing to cataract surgery amongst ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang. BioMed Central 2018-02-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5809952/ /pubmed/29433477 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-018-0705-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Li, Yanping
Huang, Wenyong
Qiqige, Aoyun
Zhang, Hongwei
Jin, Ling
Ti, Pula
Yip, Jennifer
Xiao, Baixiang
Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China
title Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China
title_full Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China
title_fullStr Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China
title_short Prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China
title_sort prevalence and causes of blindness, visual impairment among different ethnical minority groups in xinjiang uygur autonomous region, china
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5809952/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29433477
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12886-018-0705-6
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