Ocular Health of Personnel in Rangsit University - สภาวะสุขภาพตาของคณาจารย์และบุคลากรของมหาวิทยาลัยรังสิต

Abstract

          Rangsit University is one of the health promoting universities in Thailand. The university had policy to perform health check up and screening for their personnel every year. The health screening program composed of general physical and eye examination (measurement of visual acuity and intraocular tension) with essential laboratory work up taking into account age differences. The objective of this cross-sectional survey was to compare ocular health of Rangsit personnel to other Thai population and evaluated the access to eye care of the personnel. By using eye examination data in 2010, Faculty of Optometry reviewed visual acuity and intraocular pressure during screening and appointed all abnormal cases for detail eye examination at an eye clinic in Rangsit campus and RSU Eye Center for complete investigation and treatment. All the suspected cases who came for an eye examination had repeated visual acuity and intraocular pressure measurements by standard technique, slit- lamp and fundus examination including fundus photograph were performed. Of the total 1,967 personnel, 1,257 participated in the an eye screening (63.90%) with male :
female 536 :721. Their age range was 21-81 years with mean of 41.70 years. Eighty seven percent had good visual acuity (VA) without using eye glasses or contact lens. In the group of poor visual acuity, 66.61 percent had eye glasses with 52.84 percent used their eye glasses every day but 20.67 percent used them infrequently. Seventy percent had good VA after using eye glasses. Seventeen percent of the personnel had high intraocular pressure (IOP). Three hundred and seventy two personnel with abnormal VA, IOP and had diabetes hypertension hyperlipidemia were appointed for eye examination with ophthalmologists. Of which only 135 suspected cases came for the screening
at their own will (36.29%) and the result revealed that 47.76 percent had refractive error, 4.44 percent had glaucoma, 14.07 percent were glaucoma suspected and ocular hypertension, 11.19 percent had retinal and macular diseases and only 0.74 percent had strabismus and amblyopia (lazy eye). Laser treatment for glaucoma prophylaxis and retinal treatment were done in 7 personnel (5.19 %). In conclusion, the ocular health of the university personnel were good and were not different from other Thai population except that they had more refractive error and better access to refraction and eye glasses using. This report is only the preliminary report because only 36.29 percent of cases
with risk factors came for complete eye examination.
Key words: Rangsit university, personnel, ocular health, refractive error, eye diseases.