The Ibadan glaucoma study

Abstract

To Obtain epidemiologial data on the prevalence and risk factors for open angle glaucoma in hospital workers of African origin and investigate appropriate methods of a rapid, cost-effective screening procedure for glaucoma. A cross sectional study of workers in the university College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan using a structured questionnaire for data collection. The variables available for data analysis include workers demographic characteristics, visual acuity, pupil status, intraocular pressure cup-disc ratio, centra visual fields, family history of glaucoma, chronic disease s such a s hypertension and diabetes. The data EPI-INFO version 6.02 for simple analysis, while the SPSS package was used for multivariate analysis. A total of two thousand, o n e hundred and nine (2.109) U CH workers participated in the screening exercise for glaucoma . A prevalence majority of the workers I 794 (85.1%) w ere negative to the diagnosis of glaucoma , while the remaining 315 ( 14.9%) were suspected to have glaucoma out of which 57 (2.7%) were confirmed a s definite glaucoma cases. The prevalence of glaucoma among U C H workers w a s 27 per 1000. 95%. confidence interval = 20 per 1000. 3 5 p e r 1000. Factors associated with glaucoma were relative afferent pupillary defect, cup-disc ratio greater than 0.7, intraocular pressure , family history o f glaucoma and the presence of chronic disease s such as diabetes. The left eye appears to have a higher probability of ocular problems compared with the right eye The prevalence of glaucoma among hospital workers w a s 2 7% The cup-disc ratio appears to be a better diagnostic tool for glaucoma since it give s the best positive predictive value (with a cut-off point o f 0.7) than all other variables.