Abstract
Statistics on the registration of blind and partially-sighted patients in Northern Ireland underestimate the true extent of visual impairment within our community. In comparison to other UK regions, where between 0.53% and 0.59% of the population avail of blind or partial sight registration, only 0.35% of residents in Northern Ireland appear on the respective registers. Most patients on the combined registers are in the older age groups and many also suffer from other disabilities. Regional discrepancies may be attributed to a combination of factors including: patient attitudes to the registration process, medical attitudes to registration and local anomalies in the way in which social services departments both record and present annual registration returns. Better liaison is necessary between the community, hospital and voluntary sector providers to improve identification and support services for the visually impaired in the future.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Evans J. R., Wormald R. P. Epidemiological function of BD8 certification. Eye (Lond) 1993;7(Pt 1):172–179. doi: 10.1038/eye.1993.37. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Robinson R., Deutsch J., Jones H. S., Youngson-Reilly S., Hamlin D. M., Dhurjon L., Fielder A. R. Unrecognised and unregistered visual impairment. Br J Ophthalmol. 1994 Oct;78(10):736–740. doi: 10.1136/bjo.78.10.736. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Thylefors B., Négrel A. D., Pararajasegaram R., Dadzie K. Y. Global data on blindness. Bull World Health Organ. 1995;73(1):115–121. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]