Development of a Scale to Determine Barriers to Paediatric Eye Care

Childhood blindness has huge socio-economic costs. India's commitment to the goal of vision 2020 has put priority to elimination of preventable blindness in children. Although adult blindness has been extensively studied, the literature is seen to be generally lacking in providing in-depth understanding of childhood blindness, especially about barriers that impede access to eye care. The present study attempts to fill this gap. This article explains the procedure adopted in developing a scale to determine the barriers to paediatric eye care. A 22-item barrier to paediatric eye care scale was specifically developed. The scale, along with the full-length questionnaire, was pre-tested and later administered to 207 parent-respondents at Sadguru Netra Chikitshalaya (SNC), Chitrakoot, in the state of Madhya Pradesh (India). A five-round factor analysis variable deletion process resulted in a three factor structure. Although this procedure reduced the number of items in the scale from 22 to 9, the variance explained by the factors increased from 61 to 78 per cent. The three factors were labelled as economic, logistic and perception of service. Regression analyses of the three factors/barriers, economic, logistic and belief, showed significant results. Further analysis showed that parents' demographic profile and health seeking behaviour significantly explained the economic barrier. Health seeking behaviour was a significant predictor of logistic barrier.