Better health and ageing for all Australians

Final report - Risk factors for eye disease and injury

Appendix 2 Search strategy

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Questions

Eye disease and injury

For ‘causes of eye disease and injury’, questions were of the general format:
      • ‘Does factor X cause condition Y’ (eg ‘In the general population, does smoking, compared to not smoking, increase the risk of developing cataracts?’).

      To manage the search for information for this question across the multiple risk factors and conditions listed in the brief, we created the topic grids shown in Tables A2.1–A2.3.

      Eye infections

      For eye infections, questions were:
      • ‘Do infection control measures reduce the incidence of eye infections?’
      • ‘Does use of contact lenses, compared to not using contact lens, affect the incidence of eye infections?’
      • ‘In contact lens wearers, does education on use and misuse of contact lenses, compared to no education on this issue, affect the incidence of eye infections?’

      Eye tests

      For eye tests, questions were:
      • ‘Do frequent eye tests (eg 1–2 years), compared to no or infrequent eye tests, reduce the incidence of eye disease?’ (This question was applied to different age groups; eg children, adults and older people.)
      • ‘What is the optimal frequency of eye tests for each age group?’

      PICO criteria

      Based on the above broad questions, the full range of PICO (population, indication, comparator and outcome) criteria of interest for this review are shown in Table A2.1. The main focus of the searches here, given the breadth of the review, was on the intervention/indicator and outcome components of the question (I and O). Topic grids for the risks factors for eye disease and injury are shown in Tables A2.2–A2.4.

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      Table A2.1 PICO criteria

      Criterion

      Cause of eye disease and injury

      Eye infections

      Eye tests

      Early warning signs

      Population
      • general population
      • children
      • aged
      • Indigenous people
      • people with diabetes
      • people with a family history of eye disease
      • general population
      • contact lens wearers
      • children
      • aged
      • Indigenous
      • people with diabetes
      • people with a family history of eye disease
      • general population (where possible, broken down into age groups)
      • people with visual impairment or physical symptoms of eye problems

      Intervention or indicator
      • exposure to risk factor a
      • exposure to infection control measures
      • wearing contact lenses
      • education on uses of contact lenses
      • frequent eye tests (eg 1–2 years)
      		NA

      Comparator
      • no exposure to risk factor
      • no exposure to infection control measures
      • not wearing contact lenses
      • not receiving education
      • no or infrequent eye tests
      		NA

      Outcome
      • increase in incidence of eye disease and injurya
      • decrease in incidence of eye infection
      • increase in incidence of eye disease
      • change in incidence or severity of eye disease

a See Tables A2.2, A2.3 and A2.4

Table A2.2 Topic grid for risk factors for eye disease

Condition

Risk factor

Cataract

Glaucoma

Age-related macular degeneration

Diabetic retino-pathy

Retinitis pigmen-tosa

Trachoma

Amblyopia

Smoking

Alcohol consumption

Poor nutrition

Eye infections

Ageing

UV damage

a

Injuries and accidents

Corticosteroids

High myopia

Ocular hypertension

Poor living conditions

Diabetes

Heredity

Hypertension

Squint

Different refractive error in each eye

Cataract

Physical activity

a UV damage was also studied as a risk factor for two further conditions: pterygium and ocular surface neoplasm

Table A2.3 Topic grid for risk factors for eye injury

Type of injury

Risk factor

Impact or blunt force

Foreign bodies in eye

Chemical injury

Radiation

No eye protection

Wrong type of eye protection

Work

Sport

Assault

Alcohol consumption

Home environment (eg DIY and gardening)

DIY = ‘do it yourself’

Table A2.4 Topic grid for risk factors for refractive errors

Refractive error

Risk factor

Myopia

Hyperopia

Astigmatism

Presbyopia

Alcohol consumption

Poor nutrition

Eye infections

Ageing

UV damage

Diabetes

Heredity

Long-sightedness (hyperopia)

An occupation that requires near-vision work

Ocular disease

Trauma

Antidepressants

Antihistamines

Warmer climates

Excessive reading

Excessive use of computer or television

UV = ultraviolet

Search

Sources

We searched the following databases for relevant reviews and primary studies:
      • AMED
      • Biological Abstracts
      • CINAHL
      • Clinical Evidence (BMJ)
      • Cochrane Library (including the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, and the Cochrane Central Register of Clinical Trials)
      • EMBASE
      • GeoRef
      • Health and Psychosocial Instruments
      • Maternity and Infant Care
      • Mental Measurements Yearbook
      • PsycBOOKS
      • PsycINFO
      • PsycCRITIQUES
      • PubMed (MEDLINE)
      • targeted websearch (eg the American Academy of Ophthalmology website)
      • general websearch (Google, etc).

      Search terms

      Were possible, we used ‘medical subject headings’ (MeSH), which refers to the National Library of Medicine’s controlled vocabulary that is used for indexing articles for MEDLINE (PubMed). MeSH terminology provides a consistent way to retrieve information where different terminology may be used for the same concepts.

      As an example, the MeSH headings related to the search term ‘cataract’ included papers with any of the following key words:
      • Cataracts
      • Cataract, Membranous
      • Cataracts, Membranous
      • Membranous Cataract
      • Membranous Cataracts
      • Pseudoaphakia
      • Pseudoaphakias
      • Lens Opacities
      • Lens Opacity
      • Opacities, Lens
      • Opacity, Lens.
      These MeSH terms were combined with text words, as appropriate.

      Limits

      The following limits were used:
      • January 1997 — December 2006 (10 years)5
      • Language (only papers with at least the abstract in English).

5 UV damage as a risk factor for pterygium and ocular surface neoplasia were both searched from January 2006 to November 2008.