Abstract
Background: The most severe and devastating physical impairment is considered to be blindness. This happens when there is an obstruction in the path of a light stimulus as it travels from the outside to the inside and then to the brain. People with visual impairments are a very diverse group. According to a study on the comparison of the divergent development of gross motor skills in children who were blind and sighted, they experience a wide range of issues, including behavioral issues, social adjustment issues, learning difficulties, low IQ, academic difficulties, and slower speech, among others. The findings showed that around twenty-eight percent of visually impaired children had extreme developmental delays and that forty-five percent of visually impaired children had strong developmental delays in the skills that were examined. People with visual impairments may have a lower quality of life as a result of their coping mechanisms. Ophthalmologists who assess visual impairment should take into account the coping strategies used by their patients and send them for counseling and training in healthier coping strategies.
Aim: The aim of the study is to assess coping in patients with low vision or blindness.
Material and method: The Department of Ophthalmology conducted this descriptive, cross-sectional study. The study included adult patients (25–65 years old) who self-presented to the ophthalmology outpatient department and had a best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of 6/18, current refraction in the better eye, and a period of vision loss of at least six months. The cause of visual loss had to be an irreversible one; here, the irreversible low vision was defined as current BCVA between <6/18–6/60 in the better eye that could not be treated by any means, irreversible blindness was defined as current BCVA <6/60–3/60 in the better eye (economic blindness), or BCVA <3/60 in the better eye (social blindness) that could not be treated by any means.
Results: 50 patients met the requirements for inclusion and gave their consent to participate; of these, 25 (50%) had a co-morbid chronic illness but no other disability other from visual impairment, and their ages ranged from 25 to 65. Degenerative myopia was the most common posterior segment pathology and the main cause of reduced vision or blindness. When all participants were considered, avoidance coping and reflective coping both received the highest marks, whereas strategic planning received the lowest. The psychosocial effects of visual loss were connected with the lowest quality of life (QoL) scores for vision, which were typically low.
Conclusion: It was found that the diagnosis of different types of brain injury lesions may be made using a combination of CT scan and autopsy results, which aids in developing better policies. Although a CT scan is a useful tool for the diagnosis of different types of head injury lesions, it was shown that the autopsy was more successful in finding them. Patients with catastrophic head injuries can benefit greatly from the highly advanced, high resolution CT scan procedure. Both high mobilization and demobilization for coping seem to be nonadaptive modes of functioning that result in decreased life satisfaction, diminished self-esteem, and elevated levels of pessimism, loneliness, and anxiety.
Keywords: Blindness, coping strategy, proactive coping inventory, quality of life, vision, low, vision-related quality of life