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Primary Eye Care and Community Participation

Primary eye care aims to prevent blindness through promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative activities delivered at the community level. It relies on community participation to create awareness of blinding diseases, motivate individuals to participate in prevention activities, and adopt behaviors and environments that promote eye health. Examples include providing safe water and sanitation, nutrition programs, disease prevention and treatment, and screening. The success of primary eye care programs depends on factors like available resources, training, funding, and collaboration between different levels of eye care.

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520 views4 pages

Primary Eye Care and Community Participation

Primary eye care aims to prevent blindness through promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative activities delivered at the community level. It relies on community participation to create awareness of blinding diseases, motivate individuals to participate in prevention activities, and adopt behaviors and environments that promote eye health. Examples include providing safe water and sanitation, nutrition programs, disease prevention and treatment, and screening. The success of primary eye care programs depends on factors like available resources, training, funding, and collaboration between different levels of eye care.

Uploaded by

buhari rabiu
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Primary Eye Care and Community Participation

Primary eye care and community participation Delivery of primary eye care has its
specific roles and targets in the community and good community participation is an essential
component in the successful prevention of blindness program.

Primary eye care is the primary health care approach to the prevention of blindness.

Essential components of primary eye care:


 Promotive
 Preventive
 Curative
 Rehabilitative.

Promotive eye care


1. Creating and awareness of the blinding diseases existing in the community and the
ways of preventing or curing it.
2. How to use the available recourses to overcome the problems.

Preventive eye care


1. Motivation of individuals and their communities to participate in blindness prevention
activities.
2. Social and community development that promotes health 3.Change of behavior and
environment
Examples •
 Provision of adequate safe water.
 construction of latrines &refuse pits
 maintenance of environmental hygiene.
 Consumption of food rich in vitamin A.
 Care for individuals at risk.
 Prevention of measles, malnutrition and diarrhea in children •
 Protection of eyes against injuries. •
 Immunization (E.g. Measles) •
 Screening of antenatal mothers for sexually transmitted diseases. •
 Family planning

Curative activities
1. To carry out treatment procedures for simple common diseases that lead to blindness or
impaired vision if not treated e.g. corneal ulcers, refractive errors etc.
2. First aid treatment for eye injuries.
3. Timely referral to secondary level.
4. Identification of potentially blinding disease conditions for proper management
5. Identification of curable blinding diseases e.g.cataract and referral for treatment.
Rehabilitative activities
Target group:
 Incurably blind people
 They should be assured that they are not completely useless.
 Some carefully selected appropriate training should be given to them to acquire some
skills •
 Make them functional and do not allow to depend on the others totally.

Development of primary eye care program


A good primary Eye care Program will depend on:
 existing health care services and availability of trained health care workers
(Manpower)
 Political and professional motivation
 Resources for training, to conduct programs and to monitor it.
 Supplies for primary eye care workers.
 Funding for capital and recurrent expenditure.
 Close liaison with secondary and tertiary centers
 Careful Planning and evaluation

Basic equipment essential for PEC program

 Snellens chart and pinhole


 Hand magnifying lens
 Good source of light (Torch with batteries)
 Eye dressings
 Teaching materials

Different Types of Primary Eye care Programs that can be used in the community.

Depend on the need of the local community and available resources


1. Need assessment Programs
2. Screening for blinding diseases
3. Comprehensive care Eye camps
4. Outreach Surgical Camps
5. Health Education Programs

Sustainability of the PEC programs


Depend on the following areas:
 Technical sustainability :- Training of technical staff
 Financial sustainability :- Continuous allocation of funds necessary
 Operational sustainability :- Monitoring of the activities regularly.

Community Participation
Ottawa charter and health promotion 
In 1986 an international conference called Ottawa charter adopts five principal elements that
improve health promotion.

The Five principals are:


1. Healthy public policy
2. Personnel skills development
3. Community participation
4. Healthy and supportive environment
5. Re-organization of health services

Community participation is a major emphasis in eye health promotion.

The promotion of eye health and to reduce the risk of blindness though community
ophthalmology needs good community participation

Community participation is influenced by:


1. Community beliefs and perceptions
2. Motivation of people in the community
3. Awareness of the problems related to blindness

Community participation can be improved by:

1. Encouraging the people with early symptoms by their families to attend to available
health services
2. By creating and awareness through health education programs:
 - Mass media programs
- Through volunteers or community health workers by small group discussions
- Through community leaders
- Self help groups - Improving education of children through schools

Community participation enhances eye health:


1. By attending to the community health programs for early detection
2. By following treatment procedures until full recovery
3. By adopting changes in life style that encourages eye health 
4. By improving the living environment in the communities to reduce the risk of
transmission of eye diseases
5. By creating a community demand by the people of the community to develop infra
structure facilities by policy makers that improves eye care services.
There is a high demand for a community based approach in the prevention of blindness.
That needs proper community participation.

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