Awareness and knowledge about glaucoma in patients of a tertiary care hospital

Purpose: To study the awareness and knowledge about glaucoma in patients presenting to ophthalmology outpatient department of at tertiary care hospital. Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted on 300 patients attending ophthalmology outpatient department. A questionnaire was provided to the patients after a written informed consent to assess their awareness and knowledge levels of glaucoma On the basis of response, the answers were categorized in to three groups for awareness as fully aware, partially aware and not aware and for knowledge as good knowledge, fair knowledge and poor knowledge. Results: In present study, out of 300 patients, 147 were male and 153 were females. Two hundred and thirteen patients (71.0%) were from urban area and 87(29.0%) were from rural area. Most of the patients were literate (83.3%). Among literate patients, 68(27.2%) were aware about glaucoma, 98(39.2%) were partial aware and 84(33.0%) were not aware. Only 0.4% had good knowledge regarding glaucoma, 17.6% had fair and 82.0% had poor knowledge. Among illiterate patients, only 8% were aware of glaucoma. Conclusion: Thus, present study showed that there is poor awareness and knowledge about glaucoma among large population. Lack of education is the major factor. Urban patients were more aware as compare to rural. Literate male patients were more aware then illiterate patients.