TMSS Medical College Journal

Background: Ocular health problems are one of the major public health issue in the world across the developed and developing countries. According to the Bangladesh Blindness Profile over 750,000 blind in Bangladesh among them 80% due to cataract and over 6 million need vision correction by spectacles & other means. To meet this national problem, the National Eye Care project Vision 2020 was launched in the year 2000 by Director General of Health Services of Bangladesh. However, data on ocular health are scare in Bangladesh. Objective: To explore the epidemiological pattern ocular diseases in private community hospital like Rafatullah Community Hospital and concentrated not only on the blindness profile of the country but on epidemiological pattern of the ocular diseases. Methods: An analytic cross-sectional study was conducted to assess and determine the ocular disease pattern at Rafatullah Community Hospital (RCH), Bogra, Bangladesh. This 300 bed hospital is a medical college hospital for TMSS Medical College. It has its community service all over the northern region of Bangladesh and patients comes to this hospital from 52 sub-clinics of different parts of northern region of Bangladesh by the free Shuttle Bus service from Rafatullah Community Hospital. The sub-clinics were selected by simple randomization and patients were selected patients were selected by incidental/accidental sampling technique. Data were collected by interviewing the patients through semi-structured questionnaire and the diagnosis was confirmed by proper ocular examinations and relative investigations. Results: A Among 377 patients 101 (26.8%) were male and 276 (73.2%) were female. The mean age of the patients was 43.94 with SD +17.39. The largest number of patients indicated their age as between 31 and 40 years 94 (24.9%). The second largest group was the 41-50 age group, with 78 (20.7%). Most common ocular health problems were presbyopic (n=101, 26.5%), cataract (n=92, 24.4%), allergic conjunctivitis (n=48, 12.7%), pterygium (n=33, 8.8%), myopia (n=24, 6.4%) and dacryocyctitis (n=22, 5.8%). Conclusion: The study showed almost similar type of ocular disease pattern with few differences in comparison with the other regions of Bangladesh.

Health information is an essential tool for effective health planning as it helps to prepare health budget within the resources of the country1 . Unfortunately it is very difficult to get reliable health information in developing countries including Bangladesh. There are many sources to get health information and one of these is the hospital record. World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that, hospital statistic in all countries be regarded as an integral part of health information, which could be used for national health planning1 . Epidemiological research on ocular disease pattern of different courtiers especially in developed countries are done regularly to address specific ocular health problems and to create effective public awareness regarding those health problems. Number of research done on ocular disease pattern is very few and virtually none for the northern part of Bangladesh. In our country there are projects on creating public awareness on Vitamin-A deficiency Night blindness and cataract but not on other ocular health problems. As private practitioner and consultant of eye of the Rafatullah Community Hospital I noticed there are other ocular diseases which are also affecting ocular health, which needs public awareness and with that we can prevent those diseases. This research will be helping to identify the common ocular health problem in this region of the Bangladesh and we can address those problems, make specific plans and action regarding those health issues.