The lack of eye care preventive services in public health leads to an increase of progressive blindness doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5892/ruvrv.2012.101.6676

Resumo

Blindness is a serious public health problem. In Brazil, it is estimated that there are 1 million 100 thousand blind and about four million visually impaired, 80% of blindness in the world are predictable causes and / or treatable. Considering the epidemiological importance of eye diseases and magnitude of blindness in Brazil, saw the need for a literature review in order to understand the problem for future interventions. The survey results showed that: the main causes of blindness are diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma, and an alarming number of childhood blindness due to various causes, the progressive increase of blindness is attributed to several factors, in particular, the lack eye care, lack of infrastructure, organization, financial resources, which are aggravated by poverty, misinformation, inequality of the population and the absence / lack of educational efforts, despite the alarming statistics and the gradual increase in blindness, has no effective measure to control it. The model of care in ophthalmology curative until then, highlights the need for urgent action to ensure eye care in primary health care, thus allowing to ensure the completeness, quality, equity in service of disease prevention, promotion, recovery and rehabilitation of eye health .