The relationship between socio-economic status and access to eye health services in the UK: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: Lower socio-economic status has been shown to adversely affect access to general health care. This study aims to determine the existence and nature of an association between socio-economic status and access to eye health services in the UK. STUDY DESIGN: Systematic review. METHODS: Search terms were run in four databases and reviewed against a pre-agreed set of inclusion and exclusion criteria by two independent reviewers. Quality of studies was assessed according to calculations of statistical significance, size of effect, primary research question and a quality score against an adapted STROBE checklist. RESULTS: Good quality studies included in the review most commonly concluded that lower socio-economic groups had less access to eye health services than higher socio-economic groups. However there were a comparable number of studies that concluded that there was no association. This discrepancy was largely attributed to different ways of measuring socio-economic status, access, and types of eye health services, and so studies did not compare the same thing. The evidence base was of low quality, limiting the ability of this review to make definitive conclusions. CONCLUSIONS: The review concluded that there is equal and weak evidence of lower socio-economic groups having reduced access to eye health services in the UK, and there being no association. This subject would benefit from further research to improve the quality of the evidence base.