Barriers to Uptake of Cataract Surgical Services in a Tertiary Hospital

Objective: To identify the barriers to the uptake of cataract surgical services among patients with cataract attending the eye clinic in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH), Edo State, Nigeria. Materials and methods: The study was a descriptive hospital-based study of patients with cataract attending the eye clinic of the ISTH, Irrua, Edo State. An interviewer-administered questionnaire designed to identify the barriers to the uptake of cataract surgical services was used for this study. Responses to questions on willingness to have cataract surgery, reasons for unwillingness, and the factors which made willing participants end up not having surgery or delaying their surgery were obtained, collated and analyzed. Data were analyzed with IBM SPSS Software, version 21. Results: Four hundred patients made of 217 (54.3%) males and 183 (45.8%) females in a ratio of 1.2:1 were participated in this study. One hundred and eighty-eight (47%) of respondents did not know that cataract surgical services were available at ISTH, 34 (15%) had surgery within a week, whereas 189 (80.4%) respondents had surgery more than a week after being told they were eligible for surgery. Fear of poor outcome and lack of finance ranked high in the list of reasons for the delay in surgery. Women were 1.5 times more likely to have surgery than men. Education and distance from health facility had no role to play in the uptake of cataract surgery. Conclusion: Fear of poor surgical outcome, lack of finances, and lack of knowledge of the availability of surgical services are impediments to access cataract surgery at ISTH and improving surgical outcome and education about available surgical services may improve the uptake of cataract surgery.