title: Investigation about causes of blindness and low vision among members of Blind and Visually Impaired Italian Union (UICI).
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the prevalence of the most important causes of blindness among visually impaired and blind, members of UICI (Blind and Visually Impaired Italian Union). The main aim is to get information about the most important ocular diseases which make people blind or visually impaired in Italy. Further purpose is to make our data useful to provide economical evaluations about public expense due to blindness and low vision.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective analysis was carried out on UICI database to get information about members of the most important UICI Provincial Centers. The Centers were selected depending on specific inclusion criteria. The descriptive analysis was performed with SAS System 9.1.3 and Microsoft Excel 2007.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data were available for 15,725 UICI members, whose 39% (n=6,133) were visually impaired and 61% (n=9.592) were blind. Pathologic myopia was responsible for low vision and blindness in 11.78%, AMD in 11%, cataract in 8.92%, glaucoma in 8.31%, diabetic retinopathy in 8.23%, retinitis pigmentosa in 6.96%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The analyzed sample allows to get only a rough, although useful, estimate of low vision and blindness in Italy. The causes of visual impairment we found are quite in line with those provided by other international studies. The main difference from previous studies concerns pathologic myopia and retinitis pigmentosa as the most important causes of low vision and blindness among working-age people. Our epidemiological study should be mixed with economical cost-effectiveness evaluations in order to provide further impulses to efficient prevention programs.
authors.affiliation: International Agency for Prevention of Blindness - Italian branch, "Sapienza" University of Rome, Italy. filippo.cruciani@tin.it
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cruciani
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Amore
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Albanese
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Anzidei
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001766:Blindness / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015354:Vision, Low / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D055815:Young Adult