Survey of Ocular Prosthetics Rehabilitation in the United Kingdom, Part 1: Anophthalmic Patients' Aetiology, Opinions, and Attitudes.
OBJECTIVE
Ocular prostheses are constructed to aid cosmetic, functional, and psychological rehabilitation of anophthalmic patients. Part-1 of this study aimed to evaluate anophthalmic patients' opinions, attitudes, and experience about aspects related to their postfit ocular prostheses.


METHODS
One hundred sixty questionnaires were delivered to anophthalmic patients inquiring about different information such as age, gender, occupation, eye-loss cause, prosthesis type, prosthesis-wearing frequency, prosthesis-cleaning frequency, and problems encountered. A total of 126 questionnaires were returned (response rate was 78.8%). Data was analyzed using SPSS software (P <0.05).


RESULTS
The patients were 74 males and 52 females (57.55 years ± 17.57). Almost 50% of the patients lost their eye due to trauma that was the highest among other causes (P <0.05). High proportion clean their prosthesis daily (37.4%) which was the highest among other cleaning regimes (P <0.05). Almost 30.3% experienced having problems with their prosthetic eye. Patients who clean their prosthetic eye every 6 months have experienced more problems (P <0.05). Majority of patients wear their prosthetic eyes 24 hours (92%) (P <0.05). Half of patients who received a prosthetic eye for the first time experienced problems with it (P <0.05) such as excess discharge (45%), infection (25%), and soreness (20%). However, the problems were independent of prosthesis-type (P >0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Trauma is the most common cause of anophthalmic patients in the North-West of England. Anophthalmic patients are likely to experience problems with their prosthetic eye if they have lost their natural eye due to disease; it is their first prosthesis; or if they clean it once every 6 months.
*Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, King's College Hospital, London †Department of Ocular Prosthetics, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, Manchester, UK ‡Faculty of Medicine, Jordan University of Science and Technology, King Abdullah University Hospital, Irbid, Jordan §Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, Manchester, UK.
Muhanad M
MM
Hatamleh
Mojgan
M
Abbariki
Noor
N
Alqudah
Anne E
AE
Cook
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000853:Anophthalmos / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D002648:Child; D005131:Eye Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology; D005137:Eye, Artificial / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult