2M.D., Zubeyde Hanım Training and Research Hospital, Eye Clinic, Ankara/ TURKEY
3M.D., Zeynep Kamil Training and Research Hospital, Eye Clinic, Istanbul/ TURKEY
4M.D., Hacettepe Universty Faculty of Medicine, Department of Bioistatistic, Ankara/TURKEY Purpose: To assess the educational status of ophthalmology residents about retinopathy of prematurity care and to discuss factors that affect it during ophthalmology residency programme.
Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was applied between January-March 2014 to ophthalmology residents from Ankara and Istanbul, who were volunteers to answer the survey. They were asked about the personal demographic and occupational characteristics along with their educational status related to retinopathy of prematurity care.
Results: A total of 155 respondents were distributed in 6 different university hospitals and 12 different training and research hospitals of Ministry of Health. 35.5% of respondents reported that they have been observed and 15.5% have been performed the retinopathy of prematurity screening examination at least once during residency. 68.2% of respondents who work in university hospitals and 7.2% of respondents who work in training and research hospitals of Ministry of Health felt confident with their retinopathy of prematurity training during residency.
Conclusion: One of the critical steps in order to prevent blindness secondary to retinopathy of prematurity is to constitute a nationwide screening programme. Ophthalmology residency training about retinopathy of prematurity seems to be inadequate especially in training and research hospitals of Ministry of Health with no neonatal intensive care units. This problem can be partly overcomed in short term by temporary visits of ophthalmology residents to hospitals with neonatal intensive care units.
Keywords : Questionnaire, resident, retinopathy of prematurity