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Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract

Delay in seeking medical services is common in elderly populations, which leads to disease progression and life difficulty. This study aims to assess the prevalence of delay in medical visits and treatment and define associated effects and factors in patients with senile cataract, which may help obt...

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Autores principales: Xiang, Yifan, Jiang, Haofeng, Zhao, Lanqin, Liu, Qiong, Lin, Haotian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9314650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35903737
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.930726
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author Xiang, Yifan
Jiang, Haofeng
Zhao, Lanqin
Liu, Qiong
Lin, Haotian
author_facet Xiang, Yifan
Jiang, Haofeng
Zhao, Lanqin
Liu, Qiong
Lin, Haotian
author_sort Xiang, Yifan
collection PubMed
description Delay in seeking medical services is common in elderly populations, which leads to disease progression and life difficulty. This study aims to assess the prevalence of delay in medical visits and treatment and define associated effects and factors in patients with senile cataract, which may help obtain a better understanding of late-life psychopathology and provide the basis for interventions. Patients aged more than 60 years were prospectively recruited in Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (ZOC). All participants were diagnosed with binocular senile cataract and decided to have primary surgery in ZOC. The distributions of the popularity of delaying outpatient visits and treatment, the degrees of visual impairment, the influences on quality of life, and the reasons for delaying treatment among participants were accessed by the descriptive statistics. Factors associated with the perceptions of cataract treatment were accessed using a binary logistic regression model. A total of 400 senile patients aged from 60 to 94 years were enrolled. At diagnosis, 82 (20.5%) participants had a low vision with monocular acuity of both eyes below 0.05. All participants have felt that their normal lives were affected, and 64 (16%) participants felt that their lives were affected severely. Only 17 (4.25%) participants have sought for medical services immediately after feeling vision loss, and 294 (73.50%) participants have felt vision loss since a year ago before seeking medical help. A total of 298 (74.50%) participants have delayed the surgery time, and 229 (57.25%) patients delayed it for more than 12 months. There were 147 (36.75%) participants delaying surgery on account of no knowledge about it and 114 (28.50%) participants delaying surgery because of fear. There are a high proportion of elderly patients with senile cataract delaying their outpatient visits and surgery treatment, whose normal lives were severely affected. Increasing medical service propaganda about cataract and other common diseases in elderly populations would probably be helpful for improving perceptions of diseases and decreasing medical delays. Public needs to draw more attention to the healthy and medical status of the elderly ocular patients.
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spelling pubmed-93146502022-07-27 Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract Xiang, Yifan Jiang, Haofeng Zhao, Lanqin Liu, Qiong Lin, Haotian Front Psychol Psychology Delay in seeking medical services is common in elderly populations, which leads to disease progression and life difficulty. This study aims to assess the prevalence of delay in medical visits and treatment and define associated effects and factors in patients with senile cataract, which may help obtain a better understanding of late-life psychopathology and provide the basis for interventions. Patients aged more than 60 years were prospectively recruited in Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (ZOC). All participants were diagnosed with binocular senile cataract and decided to have primary surgery in ZOC. The distributions of the popularity of delaying outpatient visits and treatment, the degrees of visual impairment, the influences on quality of life, and the reasons for delaying treatment among participants were accessed by the descriptive statistics. Factors associated with the perceptions of cataract treatment were accessed using a binary logistic regression model. A total of 400 senile patients aged from 60 to 94 years were enrolled. At diagnosis, 82 (20.5%) participants had a low vision with monocular acuity of both eyes below 0.05. All participants have felt that their normal lives were affected, and 64 (16%) participants felt that their lives were affected severely. Only 17 (4.25%) participants have sought for medical services immediately after feeling vision loss, and 294 (73.50%) participants have felt vision loss since a year ago before seeking medical help. A total of 298 (74.50%) participants have delayed the surgery time, and 229 (57.25%) patients delayed it for more than 12 months. There were 147 (36.75%) participants delaying surgery on account of no knowledge about it and 114 (28.50%) participants delaying surgery because of fear. There are a high proportion of elderly patients with senile cataract delaying their outpatient visits and surgery treatment, whose normal lives were severely affected. Increasing medical service propaganda about cataract and other common diseases in elderly populations would probably be helpful for improving perceptions of diseases and decreasing medical delays. Public needs to draw more attention to the healthy and medical status of the elderly ocular patients. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9314650/ /pubmed/35903737 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.930726 Text en Copyright © 2022 Xiang, Jiang, Zhao, Liu and Lin. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Xiang, Yifan
Jiang, Haofeng
Zhao, Lanqin
Liu, Qiong
Lin, Haotian
Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract
title Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract
title_full Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract
title_fullStr Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract
title_full_unstemmed Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract
title_short Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract
title_sort delays in seeking medical services in elderly patients with senile cataract
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9314650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35903737
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.930726
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