Prevalence and factors associated with ocular morbidity among prisoners of Luzira prison

Abstract

Introduction: Ocular morbidity is a spectrum of eye diseases which includes both visually impairing and non -visually impairing conditions experienced by a population. Globally, ocular morbidity has emerged as a major public concern with over 284 million people visually impaired. Prisoners tend to have limited access to health care especially eye health and as a result some conditions may go undiagnosed or mismanaged. With the increasing prison population in Uganda and in the face of limited facilities, little is known about their ocular morbidity. Objectives: To determine the prevalence and factors associated with ocular morbidity amongst inmates of Luzira prison. Method: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in the months of September to December 2018 on inmates of Luzira prison. The study included both male (334) and female (33) inmates using the Proportionate Stratified Simple Random Sampling. Data on social demographic characteristics, medical, imprisonment factors and ocular assessment was collected using a questionnaire. All complete data was entered using an Epidata version 3.1 entry template. Logistic regression was used to determine associated factors. The final data was exported to Stata version 14 for analysis. Results: Overall, a total of 367 inmates were examined consisting of 334 (91%) males and 33(8.9%) females. The male to female ratio was 10:1. The ages ranged from 18-76 years. The mean age was 39 years (SD + 13.4). The overall ocular morbidity was found to be 49 percent. The most common ocular morbidity included; Presbyopia (27.4%), Allergic conjunctivitis (19.6%), Cataracts (11.4%). Other disorders included Refractive errors, Pterygia, Optic atrophy and Vitamin A deficiency. There was a statistically significant relationship between ocular morbidity and Age (OR 11.96, P-value=0.001), Trauma (OR 5.21, P-value 0.009), Non prison food (OR 0.45, P-value=0.006). Conclusion: The prevalence of ocular morbidity among inmates was found to be high. Ocular morbidity was significantly associated with age, trauma and having meals besides prison food. A fully functional eye unit established within the prison with essential drugs and timely referral of complicated cases would help in offering quality eye services to the inmates