Visual impairment is not enough to assess need for treatment

BMJ 1998;317:1319 ( 7 November )

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Visual impairment is not enough to assess need for treatment

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EDITOR $---$ Reidy et al found that 6% (92 of 1547) of an elderly population had serious and potentially remediable visual impairment(<6/60) and far higher numbers had less serious impairment.¹Since many of these people were not in touch with eye servicesit would be easy to conclude that, for example, the volume ofcataract surgery should be substantially increased. The findingsare important but caution is needed in drawing conclusions forservice provision. Case definitions are critical in epidemiologicalinvestigations. The authors chose a visual acuity threshold of<6/12 in the worst affected eye as part of their case definition,giving rise to high prevalences. However, this choice needs tobe justified because it may critically affect the implicationsof the study. Firstly, it is not the level of visual acuity thatis important but the impact of visual impairment on a person'slife $---$ in other words the degree . . . [Full text of this article]

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BMJ 1998 316: 1643-1646. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]