The World Health Organization (2014) estimates that approximately 285 million people worldwide have VIB. According to the Taiwan Ministry of Health and Welfare (2017), the VIB population in Taiwan numbered 57,291 in April, 2017. Most studies of VIB populations have focused on socioeconomic issues such as employment (Chu, 2015), and few have investigated their daily life challenges. Hence, the objective of this study was to fill this research gap.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate daily life challenges in visually impaired or blind population.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. A purposive sampling procedure was use to select visually impaired individuals from Feb, 2017 to July, 2017. The Daily Life Challenge (DLC) instrument proposed in Wu C.H. was used to survey five dimensions of challenges in this population: orientation and mobility, information collection, self-care management, psychological adjustment, and interpersonal network. Respondents are required to rate items on a scale from 1 to 5 (never = 1, seldom=2, sometimes = 3, often = 4, and routinely = 5). Low scores are interpreted as high difficulty of DLCs; high scores are interpreted as low difficulty of DLCs. The institutional review board of a local university approved the study protocol. Participants who met the enrollment criteria were given information about the study, including its title, purpose, duration, benefits and risks. The consent form allowed participants to indicate their agreement to participate in the study by signature, personal seal, or fingerprint. For participants who were blind or had severe visual impairment, the consent form was also signed by a witness designated by the union. The IBM SPSS software package for Windows 19.0 was used for descriptive and inferential statistical analyses.
Results: For the 200 participants who completed the DLC questionnaire, the mean subscale score was 3.64±.49. The two most difficult DLCs were information collection (3.43±.93) and orientation and mobility (3.47±.71). These were followed by psychological adjustment (3.65±.71), interpersonal network (3.71±.69), and self-care management (3.97±.65).
Conclusions: Collecting information and maintaining orientation/mobility are the two major DLCs for VIB population. Therefore, support for VIB populations should include instruction and assistance in the use of e-reader tablets and/or text-to-speech programs that they can use for easy access to information in daily life. To improve their mobility, community transportation facilities should be modified to increase their ease of use by VIB populations. This study collected important data for VIB population in Taiwan. Policy makers can use the data obtained in this study to develop programs for improving quality of life in this vulnerable population.