Nutritional and Smoking Advice to Patients With or At Risk of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) by Optometrists in Singapore

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause for visual impairment and blindness
registration in developed countries. AMD is multi-factorial and oxidative stress has been identified as one
of the main contributary factors, hence researchers propounded to investigate factors such as smoking and
diet modification or nutritional supplementation to maintain or prevent the condition from deteriorating.
Despite some conflict regarding nutritional research for AMD, provision of appropriate nutritional and
smoking advice is important with regard to reducing risk of progression to sight loss related to AMD. This
study explored the nutritional and smoking advice to patients with or at risk of AMD by Singapore
optometrists via a questionnaire and is the first in Asia to do so. In addition, it analyzed the confidence
levels of Singapore optometrists while providing nutritional advice to AMD patients via a self-efficacy
survey. The results of the study show that 52.9% of the respondents provide dietary advice to patients with
advanced AMD at least 80% of the time and 54.1% would advise AMD patients to stop smoking. When
providing nutritional advice to AMD patients, the number of years of experience do not affect the
confidence levels of Singapore optometrists and most of them are not confident in advising the amount of
foods to consume that are beneficial for their patients. The prevalence of AMD is anticipated to rise;
therefore our results highlighted the importance of more Singapore optometrists providing nutritional and
smoking advice to all their AMD patients by providing some form of assistance such as utilizing clinical
decision-making tools.