Visual outcome of cataract surgery at Gondar University Hospital Tertiary Eye Care and Training Center, North West Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Globally, cataract is the leading cause of blindness which accounts for 51% of 39 million blind people. The visual rehabilitation is made through sight-restoring surgery. The patients’ postoperative visual satisfaction, vision related quality of life, ability to function in daily activities and their overall productivity mainly depend on the visual outcome. However, there are limited data on the visual outcome and its associated factors in the study area. Therefore, this study intended to evaluate the postoperative level of visual acuity to provide a baseline information regarding visual outcome and design a standardized protocol to maximize it. METHODS AND MATERIALS: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted at the Gondar University Hospital Tertiary Eye Care and Training Center on 223 patients who underwent cataract surgery, selected using simple random technique from April to June 2015. RESULTS: This study consisted of 218 patients or eyes that underwent cataract surgery. The median age of the participants was 65 years with an interquartile range of 20 years. Of 218 cataract-operated visually impaired eyes (<6/60), 26.6% of them achieved good visual acuity (≥6/18), 28.9% of them had borderline acuity (<6/18–6/60), and the remaining of 44.5% were remained as poor visual acuity (<6/60). It has been observed that the postoperative visual acuity had an association with postoperative follow up time duration (P=0.035). CONCLUSION: In this study, the visual outcome of cataract surgery was significantly low as compared to World Health Organization’s recommendations, and it has been recognized that there is significant progression of visual acuity in different consecutive weeks.