engleski

CRO-READ: CROATIAN NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EARLY AMBLYOPIA DETECTION

Aim: To identify the achievements and define hurdles in conducting and reporting the results of the National Program of Early Amblyopia Detection. Materials and methods: Demographic data of the patients and results of screening examination collected by Croatian National Registry of Early Amblyopia Detection between June 1st-December 31st 2017 were analyzed. Results: The number of ophthalmologist who performed screening is very weak N=13 and 8/21 counties do not have a single contributing ophthalmologist. Of screened population (N=1504), only 46% of patients fulfill the age criteria. In Lika-Senj County, 100% of screened children were <4 years. The weighted relative number of four-year-old screened patients with respect to population by single age (4 year) demonstrated extremely low rate of 2.9%. When the same variable was distributed by county, 3/8 counties that performed screening scored 0%. Overall, 81% of children were screened negative, 9.6% were non-testable and 9.4% of children were referred to complete ophthalmological examination. The highest ratio of non-testables was in Šibenik-Knin and Varaždin County reaching 35% and 45% respectively. Discussion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first national amblyopia registry in the world. The Registry tracks adherence to well defined Croatian amblyopia screening policy and demonstrated poor compliance of referring physicians and reporting ophthalmologists. Conclusion: The first six months of Registry establishment witnessed that amblyopia issue is still largely ignored and urgent actions need to be taken to improve the implementation process of National Program of Early Amblyopia Detection.

REGISTRY, AMBLYOPIA, SCREENING, CHILDREN, EARLY DETECTION, EARLY DIAGNOSIS, COMPLIANCE, BLINDNESS

nije evidentirano