Under-reporting difficulties in seeing among older people with clinically assessed vision impairment: an exploration of 12 surveys from sub-Saharan Africa.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Individuals who do not perceive they have a health problem will not seek care, risking a deterioration of health status. We sought to understand how visually impaired individuals aged ≥50 y from 12 studies across sub-Saharan Africa self-reported their difficulties seeing, and to identify the factors associated with under-reporting.

Methods

We used R software to assess overall agreement between self-report and clinical assessment with a weighted kappa, and described the proportion of individuals accurately reporting, over-reporting and under-reporting their difficulties seeing. We used logistic regression to explore factors associated with under-reporting.

Results

In total, 5777/32 548 participants had moderate vision impairment (VI) or worse. Overall, agree

SUBMITTER: Jolley E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12709043 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature