Comparing Interrater reliability between eye examination and eye self-examination 1.
Maria Alzete de Lima, Lorita Marlena Freitag Pagliuca, Jennara Cândido do Nascimento and 1 others
PMID 29069269WHAT IT FOUND
Students using a virtual manual agreed with trained examiners on most eye checks, but peripheral vision and near acuity tests showed frequent errors.
Self-exams are not reliable enough to replace professional screening for these specific functions.
Key findings
01Agreement between student self-exams and trained staff was good for distance visual acuity but weak for near visual acuity.
02Peripheral vision self-exams showed low agreement with expert findings, with high rates of false negatives.
03Assessment of external eye structures like the eyelid and cornea had no statistical agreement because almost no abnormalities were found.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample consisted of young, healthy college students (mean age 21) with no diagnosed eye conditions, so results may not apply to older adults or those with existing eye disease. Many eye structures had no abnormalities detected, preventing statistical analysis of agreement for those items. The study was conducted in a single university in Brazil, limiting generalizability.
Declared interests
Funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). No other conflicts declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the lack of statistical agreement for eyelids and cornea as a failure of the self-exam method. It occurred because almost no students had abnormalities in these areas, leaving no variation to measure.