Background: There is a high prevalence of vision impairment and blindness in Africa. The poor access to eye health services, among other barriers, has been found to have a considerable effect on the burden of avoidable vision loss and blindness, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Aim: To determine the accessibility of and barriers to the utilisation of eye health services in the Kumasi Metropolis of Ghana.
Setting: A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted in the Kumasi Metropolis of the Ashanti Region in Ghana to identify barriers affecting the utilisation of eye health services.
Methods: Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants visiting the eye clinics at five selected District Municipal Hospitals for the first time. Data were collected by means of questionnaires and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
Results: Barriers faced by participants when accessing eye health services included distance to the clinic, cost of services, time spent away from work and/or school, self-medication and long waiting periods.
Conclusion: The study found that eye care services in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana are largely accessible, but underutilised. Improvement of public health education initiatives through engagement with community groups will also enhance uptake at health care facilities.Contribution: Underutilisation of health services in the Metropolis has been identified in the study and must be addressed by health managers in various sectors. Accessibility is relatively good but can further be improved especially for the elderly to be able to utilise health care services with ease.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11219546 | PMC |
http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/phcfm.v16i1.4270 | DOI Listing |
JMIR Form Res
January 2025
Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States.
Background: Social media has become a widely used way for people to share opinions about health care and medical topics. Social media data can be leveraged to understand patient concerns and provide insight into why patients may turn to the internet instead of the health care system for health advice.
Objective: This study aimed to develop a method to investigate Reddit posts discussing health-related conditions.
Exp Brain Res
January 2025
Joseph J. Zilber College of Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
Age-related hand motor impairments may critically depend on visual information though few studies have examined eye movements during tasks of hand function in older adults. The purpose of this study was to assess eye movements and their association with performance while tracing on a touchscreen in young and older adults. Eye movements of 21 young (age 20-38 years; 12 females, 9 males) and 20 older (65-85 years; 10 females, 10 males) adults were recorded while performing an Archimedes spiral tracing task, a common clinical assessment sensitive to age-associated impairments in hand function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Glaucoma
January 2025
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Precis: Current optical coherence tomography normative sample data may not represent diverse human optic nerve anatomy to accurately classify all individuals with true glaucomatous optic neuropathy.
Purpose: To compare optic nerve head (ONH) measurements between published values from an optical coherence tomography (OCT) normative database and a more diverse cohort of healthy individuals.
Patients And Methods: ONH parameters from healthy participants of the Michigan Screening and Intervention for Glaucoma and Eye Health through Telemedicine (MI-SIGHT) program and the Topcon Maestro-1 normative cohort were compared.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res (Hoboken)
January 2025
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Background: While alcohol has been shown to impair eye movements in young adults, little is known about alcohol-induced oculomotor impairment in older adults with longer histories of alcohol use. Here, we examined whether older adults with chronic alcohol use disorder (AUD) exhibit more acute tolerance than age-matched light drinkers (LD), evidenced by less alcohol-induced oculomotor impairment and perceived impairment.
Method: Two random-order, double-blinded laboratory sessions with administration of alcohol (0.
Human beings display laterilised behaviour. In sport, including golf, players adopt a right- or left-handed stance. There may be advantages in going against convention in the position of the dominant hand relative to golf stance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!