Open Journal of Ophthalmology, 2016, 6, 119-127

Published Online May 2016 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojoph

http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojoph.2016.62017

Glaucoma Awareness and Knowledge, and

Attitude to Screening, in a Rural Community
in Ebonyi State, Nigeria
C. E. Ogbonnaya1, L. U. Ogbonnaya2, O. Okoye3*, N. Kizor-Akaraiwe4
1
Department of Ophthalmology, Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Nigeria
2
Department of Community Medicine, Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, Nigeria
3
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria
4
Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu,
Nigeria

Received 22 April 2016; accepted 28 May 2016; published 31 May 2016

Copyright © 2016 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Abstract
Awareness, knowledge, beliefs and the sociocultural and religious practices, are believed to influ-
ence the treatment-seeking behavior of people as well as their uptake of services. This study was
carried out to assess the awareness and knowledge about glaucoma, and the attitude to glaucoma
screening in Nchokko village in Igbeagu community, Izzi Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, Ni-
geria. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. Data were collected using an interviewer-ad-
ministered questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS 22. Results show that a total of 402 respon-
dents—228 (56.7%) women and 174 (43.3%) men—were interviewed. The mean age of respon-
dents was 31.7 ± 11.9 years; 82.8% of the respondents had secondary education or less; 53% were
married; and 38.1% were farmers. Only 21.1% of the respondents were aware of glaucoma.
Gender, education, and positive family history were significantly associated with awareness. Only
6.3% of the respondents had good knowledge about the disease. A large proportion of respon-
dents (62.1%) exhibited a positive attitude towards glaucoma screening; however, only 5% had
ever undergone glaucoma screening. We conclude that glaucoma awareness and knowledge were
poor in this rural community, but a high proportion of respondents had a positive attitude to-
wards glaucoma screening. We therefore recommend a focused community health education
campaign that will raise awareness and impart adequate knowledge about glaucoma. Eye care
providers should make use of every opportunity to convey information on glaucoma to patients.

Keywords
Glaucoma Awareness and Knowledge, Screening, Nchokko-Igbeagu Izzi, Ebonyi State, Nigeria

*
Corresponding author.

How to cite this paper: Ogbonnaya, C.E., Ogbonnaya, L.U., Okoye, O. and Kizor-Akaraiwe, N. (2016) Glaucoma Awareness
and Knowledge, and Attitude to Screening, in a Rural Community in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. Open Journal of Ophthalmology,
6, 119-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojoph.2016.62017
C. E. Ogbonnaya et al.

1. Introduction
Glaucoma is a disease characterized by atrophy of the optic nerve and progressive loss of vision. It is an impor-
tant public health problem, being the commonest cause of irreversible blindness in the world [1] [2]. In Nigeria,
it has been found to be responsible for 16% of the blindness among the population aged 40 years and above [3].
Estimates by Quigley and Broman [2] suggest an increase in the burden of the disease worldwide between the
years 2010 and 2020.
The commonest form of this disease—open-angle glaucoma—usually has an insidious onset, which may ex-
plain why most glaucoma patients present late. It has been estimated that more than half of glaucoma patients
are already blind in at least one eye at presentation in Africa [4]-[6]. In Ebonyi State, Ogbonnaya [6] found that
53% of glaucoma patients were already blind (i.e., best-corrected visual acuity < 3/60) at presentation. Yet,
blindness from glaucoma is preventable if detected early and managed appropriately. Early detection and prompt
treatment are only achieved by timely eye examinations [5] [6].
Awareness, knowledge, and beliefs regarding diseases, as well as socio-cultural and religious practices, affect
the treatment-seeking behavior of people and the uptake of services [7] [8]. If glaucoma prevention services and
treatment programs are available, an informed public is more likely to take advantage of it before significant
functional disability or irreversible vision loss occurs [9].
This study therefore aimed at assessing how glaucoma awareness and knowledge affect attitudes and practices
among the population in Nchokko village in Igbeagu community of Izzi Local Government Area (LGA) of
Ebonyi State, Nigeria. This information can be of great value when planning health education campaigns related
to glaucoma and can benefit other prevention of blindness activities in this population residing in the catchment
area covered by our community eye program.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Area
Ebonyi is one of the relatively younger states in Nigeria, having been created out of Enugu and Abia states in
1996. It has a population of approximately 2.4 million people. The Nchokko village Igbeagu Community in Izzi
LGA of Ebonyi State was the location of the study. The Igbeagu community is one of the newly created devel-
opment centers in Izzi LGA. It is about 20 km from Abakaliki, the state capital. Four out of the 25 villages in Iz-
zi LGA make up the development center. All the four villages are served by the Ebonyi State University Teach-
ing Hospital Primary Health Care Center. The people of Igbeagu are agrarian, growing mainly root crops, tubers,
and grains, especially rice.
The Igbeagu Development Center was purposively selected for this study; the reasons were as follows:
• The Department of Community Medicine of the Ebonyi State University (EBSU) has the development center
as its primary health care (PHC) practice area for providing training to resident doctors and medical students.
• The Department of Ophthalmology of EBSU also uses the PHC for its community ophthalmology programs.
• The study was designed as part of efforts to improve ophthalmic services to this rural area.

2.2. Study Design

This was a cross-sectional descriptive study.

2.3. Sample Size and Sampling Technique

The sample size was calculated using the formula for estimating proportion ( n = Z 2 * PQ d 2 ). At α = 0.05 and
power of 90%, a minimum sample size of 372 was calculated using P of 41.2% from awareness of glaucoma
from a previous study [9]. Because the total number of adults/adolescents in the community was only 435, the
entire population was invited to participate in the study; 402 persons consented.

2.4. Study Instrument and Data Collection

The study instrument was a pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire that elicited information on re-
spondents’ socio-demographic characteristics, awareness of glaucoma, level of knowledge about glaucoma, and
attitudes and practices with regard to glaucoma screening. Awareness of glaucoma was defined as “having heard

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of glaucoma”; respondents were asked if they had ever heard of glaucoma and, if so, what their source of infor-
mation was. The level of knowledge regarding glaucoma was assessed on the basis of the responses to the fol-
lowing questions:
1) Glaucoma is a blinding eye disease: Yes/No
2) Glaucoma often causes high pressure in the eye: Yes/No
3) Glaucoma can occur without symptoms: Yes/No
4) Glaucoma runs in families: Yes/No
5) Old age is a risk factor: Yes/No
6) High blood pressure is a risk factor: Yes/No
7) Diabetes mellitus is a risk factor: Yes/No
8) Black race is a risk factor: Yes/No
9) White race is a risk factor: Yes/No
10) Glaucoma is a family curse: Yes/No
11) Glaucoma results from poor feeding: Yes/No
12) Glaucoma results from poison: Yes/No
Each correct answer to the above questions was scored 1 and a wrong answer was scored 0, and the total was
used as a measure of the respondent’s overall knowledge regarding glaucoma. A respondent could thus score a
maximum of 12 and a minimum of 0. We graded a score of 0 - 5 as “poor knowledge” and a score of 6 - 12 as
“good knowledge”.
To measure attitude to glaucoma screening, respondents were asked if they thought that they needed glau-
coma screening. An affirmative response was taken as indicative of a positive attitude to glaucoma screening.
To measure practice of glaucoma screening, respondents were asked if they had ever had a routine eye ex-
amination by an ophthalmologist (as opposed to an eye examination prompted by the presence of some visual
symptom). A positive answer was taken as indication that the respondent had undergone glaucoma screening

2.5. Data Management and Analysis

IBM SPSS statistics for Windows, Version 20.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) was used for data analysis.
Frequency tables and charts were used for descriptive statistics. Bivariate analysis was performed to assess the
relationships between the various socio-demographic variables as independent variables, and glaucoma aware-
ness, glaucoma knowledge, and glaucoma screening practice as dependent variables. The relationship between
glaucoma awareness and knowledge as independent variables, and glaucoma screening practice as the dependent
variable was also examined. The chi-square test was used to assess the strength of association between these ca-
tegorical variables. Significance was set at p ≤ 0.05 for all tests. During data analysis, neutral responses such as
“not sure” or undecided were regarded as negative answer.

2.6. Ethical Approval

Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal Teaching Hos-
pital, Abakaliki. The purpose of the study was adequately explained to members of the community, and refusal
of participation by any respondent was respected. All efforts were made to ensure confidentiality of data by re-
moving every personal identifier.

3. Limitations of the Study

The selection of the location of this study was purposive, and the village was a small settlement. Despite the fact
that Nchokko is typical of the rural villages in Ebonyi State, the results may not be immediately generalizable.
Secondly, data on routine eye check are self reports and should be interpreted with caution.

4. Results
A total of 402 persons—228 (56.7%) women and 174 (43.3%) men—participated in the survey. The mean age
of the respondents was 31.7 ± 11.9 years (range, 11 - 75 years). The majority 249 (61.9%) were in the age-group
of 21 - 40 years. A high proportion (82.8%) had secondary education or less. The commonest religion was
Christianity (89.8%). More than half (53%) of the respondents were married, and the majority (38.1%) were

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farmers. Of the 402 respondents, 10 (2.5%) indicated that they were glaucoma patients, while 63 (15.7%) had a
positive family history of blindness. Furthermore, 93 (23.1%) respondents were using spectacles (Table 1).

Table 1. Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents.

Characteristics Frequency Percentage
Gender
Male 174 43.3
Female 228 56.7
Age-group
11 - 20 70 17.4
21 - 30 153 38.1
31 - 40 96 23.9
41 - 50 57 14.2
51 - 60 19 4.7
>60 7 1.7
Educational level
Primary 137 34.1
Secondary 165 41.0
Tertiary 31 7.7
No formal education 69 17.2
Religion
Christianity 361 89.8
African traditional 35 8.7
Islam 5 1.2
Other 1 0.2
Marital status
Married 213 53.0
Single 156 38.8
Widow 29 7.2
Widower 4 1.0
Occupation
Farming 153 38.1
Civil servant 86 21.4
Businessman/Trader 58 14.4
Public servant (private sector) 37 9.2
Artisan/Apprentice 35 8.7
Health worker 20 5.0
Student 13 3.2
Do you suffer from glaucoma?
Yes 10 2.5
No 75 18.7
Not sure 317 78.9
Positive family history of blindness
Yes 63 15.7
No 296 73.6
Not sure 43 10.7

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4.1. Glaucoma Awareness

The majority 317 (78.9%) of respondents had never heard of glaucoma. For the 85 respondents who were aware
of glaucoma, the source of information was mostly the mass media for 36 (42.4%) and health facilities for 25
(29.4%) of them. Other sources of information were school 11 (12.9%), friends/relations with glaucoma 5
(5.9%), and other unspecified sources 8 (9.4%).

4.2. Knowledge of Symptoms of Glaucoma

With regard to knowledge of different symptoms of glaucoma, 56 (13.9%) respondents knew that glaucoma is a
blinding eye disease, 26 (6.5%) knew that it can occur without symptoms, and 17 (4.2%) knew that glaucoma is
associated with high pressure in the eye (Table 2).

Table 2. Knowledge of glaucoma.

Frequency Percentage
A. Knowledge of symptoms
Glaucoma is a blinding eye disease
Yes 56 13.9
No 346 86.1
Glaucoma occurs without symptoms?
Yes 26 6.4
No 376 93.6
Glaucoma is often associated with high pressure in the eye
Yes 17 4.2
No 385 95.8
B. Knowledge of risk factors
Glaucoma is more common among the black race
Yes 32 8.0
No 370 92.0
Glaucoma “runs” in families
Yes 45 11.2
No 357 88.8
Old age is a risk factor
Yes 51 12.7
No 24 6.0
Not sure 327 81.3
High blood pressure is a risk factor
Yes 25 6.2
No 26 6.5
Not sure 351 87.3
Diabetes mellitus is a risk factor
Yes 20 5.0
No 382 95.0
Glaucoma is more common among the ‘white’ race
Yes 26 6.5
No 376 93.5
C. Overall knowledge
Poor knowledge 375 93.3
Good knowledge 27 6.7

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With regard to knowledge of risk factors for glaucoma, 51 (12.7%) respondents related glaucoma with old age,
45 (11.2%) knew that glaucoma can “run” in families, 25 (6.2%) knew that high blood pressure is a risk factor,
and 20 (5.0%) knew that diabetes mellitus is a risk factor (Table 2).

4.3. Level of Knowledge of Glaucoma

With regard to overall knowledge of glaucoma, only 27 (6.7%) had good knowledge; the majority (375 respon-
dents; 93.3%) had poor knowledge (Table 2).

4.4. Attitude to Glaucoma Screening

Generally, 246 respondents (61.2%) affirmed that they needed glaucoma screening; 156 (38.8%) did not think
they need screening (Table 3). However, amongst the 85 respondents who were aware of glaucoma, 60 (70.6%)
respondents had a positive attitude to glaucoma screening.

4.5. Practice of Glaucoma Screening

Generally, only 58 (14.4%) respondents had ever undergone an eye examination by an ophthalmologist. Out of
these, 35 (60.3%) eye examinations were prompted by eye symptoms; only 23 (39.7%) were routine (Table 3).
Interestingly, all of these 23 were among those aware of glaucoma.

4.6. Influence of Socio-Demographic Factors on Awareness, Knowledge, and Attitude

towards Routine Eye Screening
Age had no significant influence on glaucoma awareness, overall knowledge, attitude to screening, and practice
of glaucoma screening in this community. On the other hand, education had significant influence on glaucoma
awareness, with respondents with ≥secondary education being more likely than those with ≤primary education
to be aware of glaucoma (X2 = 7.30; p = 0.007) and to have a positive attitude towards glaucoma screening (X2
= 4.67; p = 0.03). Surprisingly, level of education had no significant relationship with overall knowledge re-
garding glaucoma (X2 = 0.44; p = 0.5) or with practice of glaucoma screening (X2 = 0.12; p = 0.73; Table 4).
Gender had a significant relationship with awareness, overall knowledge of glaucoma, and practice of glau-
coma screening but not with attitude to glaucoma screening. Thus, men were more likely to be aware of glau-
coma (29.3% men vs. 14.9% women; X2 = 12.27; p < 0.001) but, in contrast, females were more likely to have
good knowledge of glaucoma (9.2%) women vs. 3.5% men; X2 = 4.35; p = 0.04). However, routine eye exami-
nation for glaucoma screening was significantly more common among men (18.9% men vs. 10.9% women; X2 =
4.49; p = 0.03; Table 4).
Positive family history of glaucoma had a significant relationship with awareness (X2 = 28.8; p = 0. 004) and
knowledge (X2 = 7.73; p = 0.05) of glaucoma.
Knowledge of glaucoma was significantly related to attitude towards glaucoma screening.

5. Discussion
Awareness of glaucoma was found to be very poor in this population, with only 21.1% of respondents being

Table 3. Glaucoma screening.

A. Attitude to glaucoma screening

Do you think that you need glaucoma screening?
Yes 246 61.2
No 156 38.8
B. Practice of glaucoma screening
Have you ever had your eyes examined by an eye doctor?
Yes 58 14.4
No 354 85.6
Why were your eyes examined? (n = 58)
Routine 20 34.5
Prompted by symptoms 38 65.5

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Table 4. Relationship between socio-demographic variables and glaucoma knowledge, attitude, and practice of glaucoma
screening.

Glaucoma awareness
Variable Total X2; p value
Yes (%) No (%)
A. Gender
Male 51 (29.3) 123 (70.7) 174 X2 = 12.27
Female 34 (14.9) 194 (85.1) 228 p < 0.01
B. Education
≤ Primary school 32 (15.5) 174 (84.5) 206 (100) X2 = 7.30;
≥ Secondary school 53 (27.0) 143 (73.0) 196 (100) p < 0.01
Attitude to glaucoma screening
Positive (%) Negative (%)
≤ Primary school 115 (55.8) 91 (44.2) 206 (100) X2 = 4.67;
≥ Secondary school 131 (66.8) 65 (33.2) 196 (100) p = 0.03
Knowledge of glaucoma
Good (%) Poor (%)
C. Gender
Male 6 (3.5) 168 (96.5) 174 (100) X2 = 4.35;
Female 21 (9.2) 207 (90.8) 228 (100) p = 0.04
Ever been screened for glaucoma
Yes (%) No (%)
Male 33 (18.9) 141 (81.1) 174 (100) X2 = 4.49;
Female 25 (10.9) 203 (89.1) 228 (100) p = 0.03

aware of the disease. This finding is consistent with the findings of several earlier studies on glaucoma aware-
ness and knowledge performed inpatients attending eye care services [5] [9] [10]-[14], in the general population
[11] [15], and in glaucoma patients [12] [16]-[19]. Awareness has also been shown to be particularly poor in ru-
ral communities [6]-[8] [10] [11] and among respondents of non-European descent in a Canadian study [9]. The
insidious nature of the disease is believed to be contributory to this poor awareness.
In our study, religion and age had no significant influence on glaucoma awareness. This is similar to the find-
ings of Mbadugha et al. [19] in Lagos, Nigeria, and Prabhu et al. [20] in South India. It however differs from the
findings of many other studies [7] [11] [17]; for example, in an urban population-based study, Dandona et al.
[11] reported that people aged 30 years and above were significantly more likely to be aware of glaucoma.
Many earlier studies have found that women were more likely to report awareness of glaucoma than men [7]
[9] [20]. However, we found the converse, with men being significantly (p < 0.001) more likely to be aware of
glaucoma than women This might be because the commonest source of information reported in this study was
the radio, and women’s participation in community radio programming is known to be poor across West Africa
[21].
Educational level, as expected, remains a key determinant of awareness [7] [11]. In this study, respondents
with ≥secondary education were significantly (p < 0.01) more likely to be aware of the disease than those with
≤primary education. This finding is consistent with Landers et al. [7], who reported that respondents with higher
educational level were 1.8 times more likely to report awareness of glaucoma than those with lower educational
level.
The influence of positive family history on awareness was very significant in this study. As expected, re-
spondents with relatives suffering from glaucoma were more likely to be aware of glaucoma and have good
knowledge regarding the disease. This trend has been observed in most studies on awareness and knowledge of
glaucoma [7] [11] [17] [19] [20] [22].
Knowledge of glaucoma was found to be poorer than awareness in this study, with only 6.3% of the respon-
dents having good knowledge of the disease. Most respondents (86.1%) did not even know that glaucoma is a
blinding eye disease.
It was surprising to note that although awareness of glaucoma was higher in men, knowledge about glaucoma
was significantly higher in women (p < 0.05). It is possible that though more males may have heard about the

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disease through the radio, it is usually women who go to hospitals with their children for general care or attend
free eye outreach programs and thereby receive better health education and knowledge regarding specific dis-
eases.
Positive family history of glaucoma had a significant relationship with good knowledge of the disease (p <
0.1). This is not surprising because of these respondents would have had personal experience with the challenges
of the disease and its management.
There was no relationship between awareness of glaucoma and the level of knowledge regarding glaucoma in
this study. This agrees with the report by Mbadugha and Onakoya [19] who observed that even among glaucoma
patients on treatment, knowledge regarding the disease was inadequate. This finding highlights the need for ap-
propriate focused community health education campaigns that will go beyond creating awareness and impart
adequate knowledge regarding glaucoma to the populace. It is also important for doctors to use every opportu-
nity to provide relevant information to patients to increase patients’ knowledge about their disease.
Surprisingly, educational status was not found to be significantly related to knowledge regarding glaucoma in
this study. This highlights the need to include eye health education into the school curriculum at various levels
of education, perhaps as part of general studies.
There was a discrepancy between the proportion of respondents with a positive attitude towards glaucoma
screening (61.2%) and the proportion actually undergoing screening (5%). This discrepancy persisted even
among those who were aware of glaucoma. While 70.6% of them were willing to undergo glaucoma screening,
only 27.1% had gone for routine eye screening. It has been suggested that since the disease is often symptomless,
the motivation for routine glaucoma screening will only stem from good knowledge about the disease [5] [23],
which was found to be very poor in this study.

6. Conclusion and Recommendations

To conclude, glaucoma awareness and knowledge were poor in this rural community; however, a high propor-
tion of respondents had a positive attitude towards glaucoma screening.
We recommend appropriate focused community health education campaigns that will go beyond creating
awareness and impart adequate knowledge of glaucoma to the general population. Eye care providers must use
every opportunity to convey information on glaucoma to patients.

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