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Study finds Swiss population has little knowledge of glaucoma
About 76% of those who responded to a telephone survey in urban and rural Switzerland had no correct knowledge about glaucoma, a study found.
Kaweh Mansouri, MD, and colleagues conducted a random sample of the Swiss population with 502 telephone interviews of 35- to 75-year-old subjects.
They found that 383 of respondents had no, or incorrect, knowledge about the term “glaucoma.” About 24%, or 123 respondents, called glaucoma an “eye condition.” Awareness of glaucoma was independent of age, gender, educational status and household income, researchers found.
“The lack of awareness of this insidious disease has important implication for the uptake of ophthalmic care and may result in avoidable blindness,” researchers stated.
The study was published in Ophthalmologica.