Delays in Seeking Medical Services in Elderly Patients With Senile Cataract

Abstract

Delay in seeking medical services is common in elderly populations, which leads to disease progression and life difficulty. This study aims to assess the prevalence of delay in medical visits and treatment and define associated effects and factors in patients with senile cataract, which may help obtain a better understanding of late-life psychopathology and provide the basis for interventions. Patients aged more than 60 years were prospectively recruited in Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (ZOC). All participants were diagnosed with binocular senile cataract and decided to have primary surgery in ZOC. The distributions of the popularity of delaying outpatient visits and treatment, the degrees of visual impairment, the influences on quality of life, and the reasons for delaying treatment among participants were accessed by the descriptive statistics. Factors associated with the perceptions of cataract treatment were accessed using a binary logistic regression model. A total of 400 senile patients aged from 60 to 94 years were enrolled. At diagnosis, 82 (20.5%) participants had a low vision with monocular acuity of both eyes below 0.05. All participants have felt that their normal lives were affected, and 64 (16%) participants felt that their lives were affected severely. Only 17 (4.25%) participants have sought for medical services immediately after feeling vision loss, and 294 (73.50%) participants have felt vision loss since a year ago before seeking medical help. A total of 298 (74.50%) participants have delayed the surgery time, and 229 (57.25%) patients delayed it for more than 12 months. There were 147 (36.75%) participants delaying surgery on account of no knowledge about it and 114 (28.50%) participants delaying surgery because of fear. There are a high proportion of elderly patients with senile cataract delaying their outpatient visits and surgery treatment, whose normal lives were severely affected. Increasing medical service propaganda about cataract and other common diseases in elderly populations would probably be helpful for improving perceptions of diseases and decreasing medical delays. Public needs to draw more attention to the healthy and medical status of the elderly ocular patients.

Keywords: medical delays; older patient; self-neglect; senile cataract; senile psychology.