Beliefs and attitude towards spectacles.

OBJECTIVE The study was conducted in order to discover the beliefs and attitude of the people towards wearing glasses in order to improve acceptance of glasses when prescribed thus reducing blindness and visual impairment due to uncorrected refractive errors. METHOD A cross sectional study of 198 participants using a pretested structured questionnaire was conducted during the parent-teacher association (PTA) meeting of three public secondary schools chosen at random from a list of schools in Osogbo. Information obtained included the age, sex, history of using glasses, experience if using glasses, whether or not they will allow their wards to use glasses if prescribed and ifno, why they will not. The data obtained was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 11.0 version) Computer Software. Association between variables was examined using chi-square and T-test accordingly. Level of significance was drawn at P<0.05. RESULTS The male to female ratio was 1:1.5. Their ages ranged between 15 and 80 years with a mean of 36.20 years (SD +/- 13.44). Majority, 141(71.21%) were between 21 and 50 years. All but 4(3.70%) of those that use glasses had good experiences. A significant percentage (38.38%) of the participants will not use glasses if prescribed. One hundred and two (51.52%) participants will not allow their children to use prescribed glasses. CONCLUSION Acceptance of glasses for the correction of refractive errors is not encouraging. This is particularly serious when children are concerned. A health education to enlighten the populace about the benefits of wearing prescribed glasses and the dangers of not using them when needed is necessary.