Incidence of blindness and low vision in a sample population: The Priverno Eye Study, Italy☆
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Material and methods
Between September and November 1987, standardized ophthalmologic examinations were performed on 860 adults (376 men, 484 women) from the community of Priverno, Italy, a town of 30,000 located 150 km from Rome. The study population was drawn from members of the community already enrolled in the Di. S. Co Project, a population-based study of cardiovascular risk factors. Persons eligible were contacted by a letter describing the objectives of the study and the methods to be used. Informed consent
Results
As shown in Table 1, of the 860 subjects who took part in the original 1987 study, 44 had died at the time of the follow-up examination, and 56 were no longer living in Priverno. Of the remaining 760 eligible subjects, 141 did not participate in the follow-up: 49 (34.8%) for health reasons; 32 (22.7%) because of their work; 33 (23.4%) for family-related reasons; and 27 (19.1%) because of unspecified factors. There was no significant difference between the number of males and the number of
Discussion
To our knowledge, the Priverno Eye Study is the first attempt to estimate the incidence of blindness and low vision (defined according to World Health Organization criteria) in an adult free-living population in Europe. It is difficult to classify the incidence of visual impairment observed in this study as “high” or “low.” The increase in the overall presence of visual impairment during the 7-year follow-up is certainly substantial (from 4.7% to 8.6%). It is also possible that our incidence
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Cited by (0)
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Manuscript no. 210995.
Research developed within the Target Project “FATMA” (Prevention and Control of Risk Factors), Sub-Project “Community Medicine” of the C.N.R. (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche), 1990–1995, Grant no. 91.00119.PF41.