Awareness Of Glaucoma In The Central Region Of Saudi Arabia

The aim of the study is to estimate the awareness about glaucoma among the attendees of King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital (which is one of the big hospitals in Riyadh) as well as to assess the relationship between the awareness and knowledge about glaucoma across the socio-demographic characteristics, which will help to develop educational and screening programs of glaucoma. In turn, a patient might come in early stage of the disease therefore minimizing its complication. We hypothesized that people in the central region of Saudi Arabia are fully aware about glaucoma and its related health issues. Our study is cross sectional study. A sample of 469 patients attending ophthalmology outpatient clinic took part in filling in the glaucoma awareness questionnaire. Among these participants, 250 (53.3%) and 219 (46.8%) were males and females respectively. In the age, mean +/- SD [Range]; 38.6 +/- 14.5 [14-80] years old. Results: The majority of the interviewed people had secondary or higher school education (86.3%) and were employed (44.3%); two of them refused to give any background about their educational level. Out of the 455 who agreed to respond to the monthly income question, most of them had a monthly income of more than 5000 SR. It is worth nothing that most of the interviewed were not suffering from either diabetes or hypertension. The question measuring the awareness of glaucoma revealed that approximately 67% had heard of glaucoma through doctors, families, media and friends. Those who managed to answer the questions correctly, and who had already heard of glaucoma, were 312 (66.5%). Conclusions: Assessing the glaucoma knowledge, the scores showed that majority had good knowledge of glaucoma with only a few having excellent knowledge. However, only two (0.6%) of the respondents had very poor knowledge of glaucoma.