Acceptability and barrier to consideration for trabeculectomy among glaucoma patients in a tertiary hospital in South-Western Nigeria

Abstract

Aim: To determine the acceptance rate and barrier to uptake of Trabeculectomy among glaucoma patients in our Hospital. Method: All newly diagnosed cases of primary open angle Glaucoma patients seen from May to October 2018 at the glaucoma clinic of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital were interviewed for the study using a semi-structured questionnaire designed for it. The data obtained were coded and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 15. Result: One hundred and thirty-eight primary open angle glaucoma patients with age range 23 to 82years, mean of 58.2 SD+14.6 were analyzed for this study, they comprised of 71males and 67 females, m: f ratio 1.05:1. Twenty four (17.4%) accepted surgery as against 114 (82.6%) that rejected it, fear of going blind was the most common reason for rejection (82.5%), other reasons include seeing well and bad experience of some other patients that had surgery. Conclusion: There is a low level of acceptance for Trabeculectomy in this study due mainly to fear of going blind. There is therefore the need for counselling of glaucoma patients on the benefit and safety of Trabeculectomy in order to reduce the magnitude of blindness from the disease.