Young adults with vision impairment in India: Loneliness and social networks.

Purpose: To examine the prevalence of loneliness and associated factors in young adults with vision impairment (VI), including quality of life (QoL) in India.

Methods: Two hundred and three VI young adults (18-35 years) and 219 age-matched non-VI (controls) adults completed the loneliness scale, WHOQOL-BREF, Social Network Index (SNI) (network diversity, people in network size and number of embedded network subscales) and questions regarding sociodemographic characteristics and independent mobility. Rasch analysis was used to validate the questionnaires and interval-level scores were generated.

Social media use and vision impairment in adults between the ages of 18 and 35 years in India.

Significance: Social media is used by >4.48 billion people worldwide. Despite its popularity, vision-impaired individuals struggle to use social media given visual inaccessibility of content and lack of access to Internet/Wireless-Fidelity-enabled devices.