Misconceptions and Beliefs Regarding Cataract Surgery and Outcome of the Cataract Surgery in a Rural Community of Uttar Pradesh

Misconceptions and wrong beliefs about the cataract surgery may keep away the blinds from recovery as the cataract is the major cause of the blindness in the country and as the majority of the cataract blindness cases are curable therefore with this view we had carried out the study with the following objectives.

To study the misconceptions and beliefs regarding cataract surgery and to study the outcome of the surgery performed among the cases of cataract in the study area.

A cross sectional study was conducted at Jasra and Saidabad blocks, Allahabad during 2003–04 among 9736 population of total 8 villages selected by multistage random sampling technique, the data was analyzed with SPSS Software. Chi (x2) Square test was used to know the significance of the results.

Among 9736 surveyed population 931 persons were suffering from eye diseases, out of which 390 cases were of cataract among which only 79 (20.26%) had undergone cataract surgery. Out of these majority 73 (18.72%) had surgery done by an eye surgeon. Out of total cataract cases 139 (35.64%) were afraid of surgery while 63 (16.15%) cases can not afford the cost, followed by 33 (8.46%) cases who told that it might cause total vision loss. Out of total cases 35.64% had got only symptomatic relief followed by 27.14% cases who had recovered completely. Majority of 47(59.49%) cases were not satisfied and only 18 (22.78%) were completely satisfied by cataract surgery and 58 (73.42%) underwent the surgery free of cost.

By assessing misconceptions, outcome of surgery, level of satisfaction and cost of surgery in rural community we can draw certain inferences to formulate policies and implement blindness control programme in these regions separately to achieve national goal of blindness control as earliest as possible.