Abstract
Aims No information exists on the frequency of visual impairment in people
with diabetes mellitus (DM) in Germany. In this study, the prevalence of vision
impairment in those individuals was investigated.
Methods We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of 295 people (14221
consultations) at a university outpatient clinic with any type of DM and an
available ETDRS-Score and visual acuity. The primary outcome was the prevalence
of visual impairment, the secondary outcome was the correlation of the
ETDRS-Score and limitations of visual acuity and the prevalence of higher
ETDRS-Score with a visual impairment defined as a
decimal-visus</=0.3.
Results The prevalence of visual impairment in participants with DM was
11.2%; among these individuals, 81.8% had no or
non-proliferative retinopathy. In the DM2 subgroup, 81.5% (n=22)
of the visually impaired participants had no DR, in contrast to only
16.7% (n=1) in the DM1 subgroup. Progression in ETDRS-Score led
to worse visual acuity (r=−0.209; p<0.001). A
significantly related covariates with impairment of the visual acuity for
individuals with DM1 was the duration of diabetes (B=−0.007;
p=0.001) and for individuals with DM2, the age
(B=−0.008; p=0.009).
Conclusions The prevalence of impaired vision in people with diabetes in
our cohort was 11.2%,<20% of visual impairment in people
with diabetes is caused by diabetic retinopathy, and 69.7% of
participants with visual impairment had no DR. In our study patients without
visual impairment showed a similar distribution of DR severity levels regardless
of the type of diabetes.
Key words
diabetes - retinopathy - prevalence - impaired vision - screening
