Eye health service uptake among people with visual impairment and other functional difficulties in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study with short-term follow-up

The study explores the relationship between self-reported difficulties, assessed using the Washington Group Short Set of Questions, and eye health service take up, among patients attending services in Bangladesh.

This has been useful to understand the profile of patients accessing eye health services where 26.6% of those attending had a self-reported functional difficulty. Patients with functional difficulties were less likely to take up refractive error services and were more than twice as likely to access surgical services when attending an outreach camp.

This is important to understand what and where services are accessible for people with disabilities, in order to improve our programmes and uptake of hospital-based services.