Knowledge of glaucoma amongst undergraduate students of University of Calabar, Nigeria

Abstract

Globally, glaucoma is the leading cause of irreversible blindness and the common type is asymptomatic until later stages. Knowledge about the disease is known to influence utilization of eye screening services. A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the level of glaucoma knowledge among undergraduates of University of Calabar, Cross River state, Nigeria. Four hundred (400) respondents were involved. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire and data were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2016 and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The results showed that 66.25% of the respondents had heard of glaucoma, 45% of them had poor knowledge of glaucoma, and only 29.6% had good knowledge. Common sources of information about glaucoma were from health care personnel (22.8%), mass media (16.8%) and from relations and friends (13%). Age and gender of participants were not statistically significant when compared to their knowledge level of glaucoma (p=0.651 and p= 0.967 respectively. However, there was a statistical significant relationship between knowledge score and faculty of study of undergraduates (p=0.002). With the poor knowledge of glaucoma among undergraduates, the study recommends a stronger collaborative effort in providing quality glaucoma education by all eye care stakeholders at all levels.