Attend Your Diabetic Eye Exam Appointments!

Patients need to do their part in preventing vision loss from diabetic retinopathy by being compliant and attending scheduled eye exam and testing appointments. Researchers reporting in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, studied and identified variables that predict compliance with their scheduled annual eye exams using the Compliance with Annual Diabetic Eye Exams Survey (CADEES), a new questionnaire designed to measure health beliefs related to diabetic retinopathy and annual eye examinations.

Factors Influencing Diabetic Eye Exam Compliance
A number of factors seemed to influence diabetic patient compliance with annual eye exams. First, there is variable compliance depending on whether patients think that their insurance will pay some or all of the cost of a diabetic eye exam. Second, compliance depended on whether it was difficult to schedule or physically get to an eye exam appointment. Third, there was variable compliance depending on whether patients had been counseled on the importance and priority of a diabetic eye exam and fourth whether they had been previously told that they had diabetic retinopathy. Clinicians can also help patients with compliance with the diabetic eye exams by carefully counseling newly diagnosed patients much more diligently along with those who have uncontrolled blood glucose on the importance of annual eye examinations.

If you or someone you know has diabetes they need to have regular annual dilated eye exams to prevent vision loss from diabetic eye diseases and problems. Please share this information with anyone you know who is diabetic and ask them to call Northwest Indiana Eye & Laser Center at 219-464-8223, or visit Northwest Indiana Eye & Laser Center, Google+ or facebook.com/nwindianaeyeandlaser.

Northwest Indiana Eye & Laser Center offices are located at 502 Marquette Street, Valparaiso, Indiana 46383 and 1001 South Edgewood Drive, Knox, Indiana 46354.