Protective eyewear in children with one eye vision loss: compliance and trends

Purpose Safety glasses are an important measure to prevent blindness, especially in one- eyed patients. However, patient compliance with eye protection is often limited. Unlike previous studies that described protective eyewear wearing in anophthalmic patients, this study analyzed their usage in functionally one-eyed children, having a significantly reduced visual acuity in one eye, determining common obstacles to their use. Methods A survey-based study analyzing protective eyewear usage in children with one eye vision loss (mean logarithm of the Minimum Angle of Resolution (logMAR) visual acuity <= 0.7). Results This study included 83 functionally one-eyed children (44 males), who received a recommendation to wear safety glasses. Ninety-nine percent of their caregivers were aware of this recommendation; however, 31% of them did not know the glasses' true purpose. Regarding actual usage, only 29 (35%) children wore safety glasses at least 90% of the day, 26 (31%) children wore them part-time (10-90% of the day) and 28 (34%) wore them rarely or never at all (< 10% of the day). Compliance was higher when glasses provided optical correction. Reasons provided for non-compliance included: discomfort, appearance, cost and vision reduction. Many respondents recollected incidents in which the glasses prevented an eye injury, and less commonly an eye injury occurring while the child was not wearing eye protection. Conclusions Compliance with safety glasses in functionally one-eyed children is limited. Emphasizing that numerous gaps and barriers need to be bridged to improve eyewear protection in these children to prevent trauma in the better-seeing eye with its devastating lifestyle effect.