An epidemiological survey and treatment of blindness in Zhangqiu city of Shandong province

Objective An epidemiological survey of blindness was carried out in Zhangqiu city of Shandong province Methods According to stratified random sampling rule, 11 884 persons were chosen as the sample (the sampling fraction is 1 27%) in the city The WHO grading system for blindness was followed in the survey Results The prevalence of blindness was found to be 0 31%, resulting chiefly from cataract (45 95%), glaucoma (24 32%) and vitreous retinal disease (13 51%) 1 016 cases of blindness caused by cataract were operated for restoration of vision, that were accounted for 73 89% of all cataract blindness estimated from the result of the survey The rate of intraocular lens implantation in the restorative operations was 84 15% (855/ 1 016) After operation, the corrected vision in 64 47% of the blindness was ≥1 0, in 21 26% between 0 6～0 9, in 10 24% between 0 3～0 5, and in 4 03% between 0 05～0 2 Conclusion The epidemiological results show that the main cause of blindness is cataract So it is the key objective for surgical restoration of vision in the prevention of the blindness in later days