Periodic Eye Examinations among Ophthalmologists: Attitudes, Performance, and Barriers for Compliance.

Background: Preventive eye care is a preferred practice that includes recommended regular eye examinations, which is not always followed.

Objective: This study examined attitudes of ophthalmologists toward routine eye examinations, analyzed compliance with their own eye examinations, and described reasons for non-compliance.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving an online survey, sent to all members of the Israeli Ophthalmological Society (IOS) asking their personal opinions concerning routine eye care, self-performance of these tests, and reasons for non-compliance.

Results: A total of 243 responses were received (59% males, mean age 52 years) representing 40% of IOS members. 98% of respondents think that adults should be routinely screened for eye diseases, most commonly annually (52%) or every two years (36%); however, only 55% of ophthalmologists reported having themselves a routine eye check in the past 3 years, which is significantly lower than their spouse (68%,  = 0.003). Recommendations for routine eye examinations were always higher than their actual performance regardless of the responding ophthalmologists' gender, age or country of birth. Furthermore, female gender was found to be a negative predictor of having these examinations. Pupil dilation was performed in 38% of ophthalmologists' testing, even though 80% of them think it is necessary for a complete examination. 'Lack of time' (35%) and 'forgetfulness' (31%) were the main reasons provided by ophthalmologists as an explanation for not having regular eye testing.

Conclusions: Ophthalmologists typically recognize the importance of preventive eye care, recommending periodic eye examinations for their patients; however, self-performance of these evaluations by the ophthalmologists themselves is much lower.