1. Children's visual impairment and visual care related to socioeconomic status in Catalonia (Spain)
- Author
-
Núria Vila-Vidal, Ricard Tresserras, Jordi Alonso, Anna Rius, Laura Guisasola, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Departament d'Òptica i Optometria, and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. VOS - Visió, Optometria i Salut
- Subjects
Adolescent ,genetic structures ,Population ,Visual impairment ,Vision Disorders ,Trastorns de la visió ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,030225 pediatrics ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Prevalence ,Medicine ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Multiple logistic regression analysis ,education ,Association (psychology) ,Child ,Children ,Socioeconomic status ,education.field_of_study ,business.industry ,Childcare ,05 social sciences ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Infant, Newborn ,Infant ,Health Surveys ,Confidence interval ,eye diseases ,Cross-Sectional Studies ,Ciències de la visió::Optometria [Àrees temàtiques de la UPC] ,Social Class ,Socioeconomic Factors ,Vision disorders ,Spain ,Infants discapacitats visuals -- Educació ,Child, Preschool ,Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health ,Health survey ,medicine.symptom ,business ,Infants ,050104 developmental & child psychology ,Demography - Abstract
Background: The objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of visual impairment and visual care practices and its association with socioeconomic conditions in the infant population in Catalonia. Methods: The Catalan Institute of Statistics provided a random sample of 0 to 14-year-old non-institutionalized children whose parents were interviewed in a continuous health survey from 2011 to 2015 in Catalonia. A multistage stratified and random sampling procedure considering age, sex, county and town was followed. All results have been weighted according to the sample design and are presented as the proportion of the condition with its 95% confidence limits. Chi-square tests were performed to evaluate the association between categorical variables. To study the association of visual care with independent variables, a multiple logistic regression model was used. Results: In 0 to 14-year-old children, a 12.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] [11.8–13.9]) prevalence of correctable visual impairment was observed. The prevalence of non-correctable visual impairment was 0.9% (95% CI [0.6–1.2]). Noncorrectable visual impairment was more prevalent in families with lower education levels, manual professions or unemployed. Of children without visual impairment, 13,5% (95% CI:12.3–14.6) visited a visual care professional in the last 12 months while this proportion was 67.4% (95% CI [63.3–71.5]) among those with correctable visual impairment. When parents have a university degree or non-manual professions, a higher level of visual care was observed. In children with correctable visual impairment, visual reviews were more frequent when parents are employed in a non-manual profession. Conclusions: For the first time, indicators related to visual impairment in children in Catalonia have been recorded. There is an association between lower socioeconomic status and having non-correctable visual impairment, and conversely, having correctable visual impairment was significantly associated with employed parents. More visual care is associated with higher socioeconomic status.
- Published
- 2021