title: Blindness and visual impairment in western Bulgaria.
abstract: The Sofia Eye Survey was a population-based blindness and visual impairment survey of 6,275 randomly selected men and women from the Sofia district and Sofia city in western Bulgaria. A complete house-to-house census on all adults over age 40 years was performed, and visual acuity performed on 98%. We referred 171 subjects for a complete dilated ophthalmologic examination because the pinhole vision in the better eye was 6/18 or worse. Trained ophthalmologists refracted all referred subjects and then examined them with a slit lamp and ophthalmoscopy to determine the cause of visual loss. The rate of blindness (defined as vision in the better eye worse than 3/60) in this population was 0.49% and the rate of visual impairment (6/18 to 3/60 in the better eye) was 0.83%. The leading cause of both blindness and visual impairment was cataract. These data from the first community-based survey of blindness in Eastern Europe suggest that the rates of blindness and visual impairment are similar to those reported from other developed countries.
authors.affiliation: Center for Sight, Sofia, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vassileva
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Gieser
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vitale
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Cholakova
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Katz
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: West
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001766:Blindness / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002031:Bulgaria / Q000453:epidemiology; D002386:Cataract / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011897:Random Allocation; D012423:Rural Health; D014504:Urban Health; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014792:Visual Acuity