Eye Care Use Among a High-risk Diabetic Population Seen in a Public Hospital's Clinics

Importance: Little is known regarding eye care use among low-income persons with diabetes mellitus, especially African Americans.

Objective: To investigate eye care use among patients with diabetes who were seen in a county hospital clinic that primarily serves high-risk, low-income, non-Hispanic African American patients.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A retrospective cohort study with 2 years of follow-up examined eye care use among adult patients with diabetes seen in 2007 in an outpatient medical clinic of a large, urban county hospital that primarily serves low-income, non-Hispanic African American patients. Patients with a history of retinopathy and macular edema or a current diagnosis indicating ophthalmic complications were excluded. Eye care use was defined dichotomously as whether or not patients had a visit to the eye clinic for any eye care examination or procedure. We estimated crude and adjusted rate ratios (aRRs) and 95% CIs for the association between eye care use and selected clinical and demographic characteristics.

Results: There were 867 patients with diabetes identified: 61.9% were women, 76.2% were non-Hispanic African American, and 61.4% were indigent, with a mean age of 51.8 years. Eye care utilization rates were 33.2% within 1 and 45.0% within 2 years. For patients aged 19 to 39 years compared with those aged 65 years or older, significantly decreased eye care utilization rates were observed within 1 year (aRR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.27-0.84) and within 2 years (aRR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.38-0.99).

Conclusions And Relevance: Overall eye care utilization rates were low. Additional education efforts to increase the perception of need among urban minority populations may be enhanced if focused on younger persons with diabetes.