Community Medicine Abstracts - College of Medicine and Health ...

Project No. 41 (1994)Common Eye Diseases in Al Ain City of United Arab EmiratesStudent Authors: Sultan Matar R. MitrefFaculty Supervisors: Dr. A. Bener, Prof. J.N. Norman, Dr. B. BillingAbstract:Objectives Eye diseases leading to visual impairment are common in developingcountries with millions of patients suffering from preventable causes of blindness.Objectives To study the common eye diseases seen in patients presented to TawamHospital Ophthalmic OPD and to determine the associated factors which may lead toeye diseases.Design A retrospective descriptive study of patients presenting with eye problems toTawam Hospital out patient ophthalmology clinic.Subject 105 males, 95 females of all ages.Results The most common disease is conjunctivitis (non-trachomatic) 23.5% thencataract 19.5% then 15% with refractive error and glaucoma 14%. Most of patientshad no associated factors (74%) whereas 17% had diabetes mellitus, 3.5% had oldtrachoma and 2% had hypertension.Recommendation We need to improve our local patient’s level of awareness andhealth consciousness about the attendance to the hospital and to establish an activesystem in which all the school boys and school girls are screened for eye diseases andfor visual acuity and to do further studies to determine the common eye diseases inthe community.