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Abstract
Objectives To test the hypothesis that a shopping centre Pop-Up health check combining an intraocular pressure (IOP) check with a general health check (blood pressure (BP)) is more readily accepted by the general public than an IOP check only. We investigate public awareness of IOP compared with BP and the feasibility of measuring IOP in large numbers in a Pop-Up.
Design A cross-sectional study using a tailor-made healthcare Pop-Up.
Setting The ‘Feeling the Pressure’ Pop-Up was sited in eight regionally-different shopping centres in England.
Participants Adult members of the public in shopping centres.
Methods On one day we measured IOP only and on another measured BP and IOP. IOP was measured by Icare IC100 tonometer (Helsinki, Finland). Potential participants were asked about their awareness of IOP and BP and when they last visited their optometrist.
Results More people attended the combined BP + IOP days (461; 60%; 95% CI 56% to 64%) than IOP-only days (307; 40%, 95% CI 37% to 43%) over 16 days of testing. We recorded IOP in 652 participants (median (IQR) age and IOP of 54 (42 to 68) years and 13 (11 to 15) mm Hg, respectively). Fewer people reported awareness about IOP (19%, 95% CI 16% to 23%) compared with BP (71%, 95% CI 66% to 75%). Of 768 participants, 60 (8%) reported no previous optometric eye examination and 185 (24%) reported >2 years since their most recent examination.
Conclusions Measuring IOP in large numbers of the public via a shopping centre Pop-Up is feasible. Public engagement was greater when a BP check was offered alongside an IOP check, suggesting unfamiliar health checks can be promoted by aligning them with a more familiar check. Our findings hint at strategies for public health schemes that engage the public with their eye health.
- public health
- ocular health
- primary care
- optometry
- intra-ocular pressure
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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Footnotes
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Contributors LAE performed study design, data collection, data analysis and manuscript preparation. DJT performed data collection and manuscript critique. PC performed data collection and manuscript critique. RS performed data collection and manuscript critique. DFE performed study design and manuscript critique. DPC performed study design, data analysis and manuscript critique.
Funding This project was supported in part by an unrestricted regional funding grant from Allergan Inc. and a grant from the International Glaucoma Association (IGA)/College of Optometrists research award (which is funded by the IGA and administered by the IGA in conjunction with the College of Optometrists).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval The study was approved by City, University of London Senate Research Ethics Committee and was conducted according to the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.