Analysis of awareness and knowledge of glaucoma among employees of an Indian medical college and tertiary care hospital

Introduction: Glaucoma is a disease which is asymptomatic in early stages and invariably results in blindness. The inadequacy in awareness among common people which gives rise to non-diagnosis or late diagnosis has been highlighted by various studies worldwide. This study is conducted to evaluate and compare the level of awareness and knowledge among the employees of a medical college and tertiary care hospital. Methods: 750 employees of a tertiary health care institution were involved in this cross sectional study to evaluate and compare the level of awareness and knowledge about glaucoma. Data were entered in Excel work sheets and SPSS 9.2 was used for analysis. Results: Valid responses from 698 participants, including 308 males and 390 females were evaluated. 19.2% staff have not heard about glaucoma out of which 74.2 % were non-medical staff, 18.1% were allied medical staff, 3.1% were dental staff and 0.9% were medical staff. All four groups varied in their responses pertaining to the knowledge of glaucoma. All the results were statistically significant (p<0.009 to 0.001). Conclusion: All employees except medical staff are poor in glaucoma awareness and all staff have poor knowledge of glaucoma which is variable among the different categories. It is inevitable for medical college employees to be aware of glaucoma. Augmentation of awareness and the knowledge of glaucoma among these personnel is the need of the hour.