Falls and self-assessment of eyesight among elderly people: A population-based study in a south Brazilian municipality

This paper seeks to verify the association between falls and self-assessment of visual acuity in elderly people by means of a cross-sectional population-based study involving 1593 elderly people (aged 60 or over) from the urban zone of the municipality of Bagé-RS. Poisson regression was used for association analysis. Fall prevalence in the last year was 28.0% (95%CI: 25.8; 30.2), with 45.0% of these having suffered two or more falls in the same period. Elderly people self-assessing their eyesight as bad/very poor (10.0%) or regular (33.3%) showed a linear increase in fall occurrence when compared to individuals who considered their eyesight to be good/excellent. Self-assessment of eyesight showed itself to be an important factor associated with the occurrence of falls. This results entails the need to make progress with tracing elderly people with eyesight difficulties and its possible impact on actions to prevent the occurrence of falls.