Attitudes of parents toward eye care in children under 7 years old in the Republic of Ireland

Purpose Various factors have been highlighted as affecting the uptake of eye care services around the world. We surveyed the parents and guardians of children under seven years old, in the Republic of Ireland, to investigate barriers to and knowledge of eye care. A secondary objective was to determine if either varies according to parent's socioeconomic status, ethnicity or level of education. Methods In 2015, one thousand surveys were distributed to the parents of 4 to 6 year old school children in the Republic of Ireland. Results 446 surveys were completed (44.6% response rate). Chi‐square revealed a significant relationship between ethnicity and how to access eye care X2 (4, n  = 437) =27.13, P  < 0.001. Analysis of the raw data revealed that the majority of Asian parents, 6 out of 7 respondents (86%), did not know how to access eye care appropriate for their child's age. Thirty percent of parents/carers ( n  = 134) reported having at least one barrier to accessing eye care. Respondents were assigned a ‘barrier score’‐ zero barriers to a maximum of 10 reported barriers. A Mann‐Whitney U test disclosed that parents from lower income families n  = 84 (19%) had significantly higher number of barriers to eye care (U = 12273, P  = 0.002) than those from higher income households n  = 356 (81%). Each respondent was assigned a ‘children's eye care knowledge score’. The maximum knowledge score was 5 and the minimum 0. Kruskal Wallis X2 (2, n  = 438) =11.34, P  = 0.003 revealed a significant relationship between knowledge of eye care and level of parental education. Inspection of the mean rank of groups suggest that those with higher levels of education n  = 314 (77%) had the highest eye care knowledge score. Conclusions This research has shown that there are significant barriers to eye care in the Republic of Ireland which need to be addressed when designing future eye care pathways.