BPSU study - British childhood visual impairment and blindness study

Surveillance of childhood visual impairment and blindness in the UK (excluding Republic of Ireland) ≤18 years of age concluded in October 2016. It is hoped that the findings from this study will inform planning of prevention and treatment strategies and targeting of screening; ‘map’ clinical and public health services involved in detection and management thereby informing the commissioning and delivery of NHS services.

A paper has now been published in The Lancet. Link to the abstract can be found below.

Lead investigator

Professor Jugnoo Rahi
Population, Policy and Practice Programme
UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health
30 Guilford Street
London WC1N 1EH
Email: j.rahi@ucl.ac.uk

About the study

Overview

Most children living in the UK with visual impairment or blindness are likely to be affected from birth or infancy and will experience a significant lifelong impact on their development, education, social and emotional well being.

Surveillance of Childhood Visual Impairment and Blindness in the UK (BCVIS2) will determine the incidence, causes, mode or context of detection, associated factors, management and short-term health and social outcomes of all-cause childhood visual disability. All children aged less than or 18 years diagnosed during a one year period as being severely visually impaired or blind will be identified through their clinicians using national active surveillance independently but concurrently through the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit and the British Ophthalmological Surveillance Unit (BOSU).

There will be simultaneous identification of those children with visual impairment (ie less severe impairment) through BOSU as these children are unlikely to seen by a paediatrician. The merged dataset will then encompass the full spectrum of visual disability.

It is hoped that the findings from this study will inform planning of prevention and treatment strategies and targeting of screening; ‘map’ clinical and public health services involved in detection and management thereby informing the commissioning and delivery of NHS services; and present an evidence base on the sociodemographic variations in childhood visual disability to inform national public health policies.

You can download the protocol card, including references, below.

Case definition

Any child or young person (aged less than or 18 years) newly diagnosed as being severely visually impaired or blind (SVI/BL) due to any disorder in the UK (excluding Republic of Ireland).

This includes any child or young person:

  • with corrected distance acuity worse than 6/60 Snellen or LogMAR 1.0 in the better eye, or
  • is eligible for certification to the national registers of sight impairment, or
  • with clinical features consistent with SVI/BL, or
  • assessed as having special educational needs due to SVI/BL.

Published Papers

Duration

October 2015 to October 2016 (13 months of surveillance). Follow-up until October 2017 (12 month follow-up).

Funding

This study is being funded through a grant from Fight for Sight.

Approval

This study has been approved by NRES Committee – London – Bloomsbury (REC reference: 14/LO/1809; IRAS project ID: 161997) and has been granted Section 251 HRA-CAG permission (CAG Reference: 14/CAG/1028).

Support group

Partners