Proportion, Causes and Associated Factors of Blindness Among Adult Patients Attending Tertiary Eye Care and Training Center in Ethiopia

PURPOSE: This study aimed to estimate the magnitude of blindness, identify causes and associated factors among adult patients who visited a Tertiary Eye Care Training Center in Gondar, Ethiopia. METHODS: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was done at University of Gondar Tertiary Eye Care and Training Center. 708 participants (99.02% of invited) were recruited in this study with a systematic random sampling technique. Interviewer administered questioner and physical examination were applied to collect the data. Blindness was defined as the presenting visual acuity less than 3/60 in the better eye according to the World Health Organization criterion for visual acuity. Data was entered with Epi Info 7 and imported into SPSS for coding and analysis. Descriptive and analytical statistics were performed to analyze the entered data. Adjusted odds ratio was used to show the strength of the association and variables with a P–value of < 0.05 were considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: The proportion of blindness in this study was 14.3% (95% CI: 11.8–16.8). Low monthly income (AOR: 4.9; 95% CI: 1.4, 17.1), aged ≥ 60–69 (AOA: 2.9, 95% CI: 1.2, 7.6), and aged ≥ 70 years (AOR: 4.8; 95% CI: 1.9, 12.2) were positively associated with blindness. In this study, the leading cause of blindness was cataract (49.5%), followed by glaucoma (18.8%) and Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) (9.9%). CONCLUSION: The proportion of blindness was 14.3%. Cataract, glaucoma and AMD were the common causes of blindness. Low monthly income and older age were significantly increased the risk of blindness.