Awareness of Emergency Eye Diseases and Red Flag Symptoms in Population of Western Province

Background: Emergency eye disease can lead to visual loss when the patient delay seeking medical care quickly due to poor knowledge and awareness of red flags and symptoms that eventually end by late diagnosis then possibly devastating outcomes for example permanent visual loss. This study aims to examine the level of awareness and knowledge regarding different emergency eye diseases in Western Province, kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Methodology: This is a cross sectional study conducted via online questionnaire and approved by research ethics of Taif university. SPSS version 25 was used for statistical analysis. Chi-squared, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal Wallis tests were applied, and a P-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

Result: A total of 702 participants to the online questionnaire from the western province of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with 565 (80.5%) females and 137 (19.5%) males. Regarding the awareness of different emergent ocular diseases, acute angle closure glaucoma has the highest awareness level (41.7%) and the least was giant cell arteritis (12.4%).

Conclusion: This study reflected the awareness and knowledge of retinal detachment, giant cell arteritis and central retinal occlusion in average population of the western province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia which was extremely low. This will have an impact on seeking medical care early with delay in diagnosis and implementation of treatment that results in significant visual complications. So, we need to raise awareness of society about different emergency ocular conditions and red flags to help overcome the negative outcomes.