Page 113 - DISINVESTMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF VISION SCREENING TESTS BASED ON THEIR EFFECTIVENESS

Effectiveness of routine population-wide orthoptic preschool vision screening tests at age 6-24 months in The Netherlands
RESULTS
Inclusion
All children born in the area of and registered at the participating CHC centres were included at baseline. Inclusion into both study groups (n 10 811) was distributed equally across the 134 participating centres (p 0.13). The control group comprised 5649 children of whom 89 dropped out of the study (1.6%) prior to their first screening moment (moved out of the area, had no screening record or were non-users of the CHC centre). The intervention group included 5162 children with 100 dropouts, either prior to their first screening moment or because of declined participation (1.9%) (p 0.15) (Figure 1). After excluding the dropouts, the total study population consisted of 10 622 children (5479 male, 5132 female) with 37 722 patient-years of on study exposure time. Loss to follow-up – at any time point after the first screening visit – occurred equally in both groups with 491 / 5560 (8.8%) and 468 / 5062 (9.2%) cases, respectively (p 0.46) (Figure 1). Loss to follow-up was mainly due to no VA measurement or relocation of the child. An orthoptic form was received of 532 (out of 771) referrals in the control group versus 464 (out of 755) referrals in the intervention group. In addition, 84 forms in the control group and 108 forms in the intervention group were received of children referred outside of screening.
Attendance
Attendance to general health screening visits at 0-45 months was 7.95±1.42 visits in the control and 7.71±1.40 visits in the intervention group. The distribution of visits was slightly skewed with more visits in the control group. In the control group a mean of 3.12±1.07 orthoptic vision screening tests were performed at 6-24 months, as compared to 1.03±1.06 screening tests in the intervention group. Complete absence of screening in the intervention group was achieved in 1989 children (39.3%), while 1598 (31.6%) underwent a single vision screening exam and 1475 (29.1%) children two or more vision screening tests (Figure 2). Vision screening was allowed in the intervention group in case an eye abnormality was noticed or suspected by the screening physician or parent or in case of a positive family history.
111
6