Health and social care information for visually‐impaired people

The purpose of this study is to examine the health and social care information needs of people with a visual impairment; to identify the health and social care information sources used by visually‐impaired people seeking information; to identify differences in the information needs of people with different visual impairments; to examine ways in which developments in information provision may help to meet the needs of visually impaired people.

In total, 28 semi‐structured interviews (face‐to‐face or telephone) were conducted with 31 visually impaired people living in or near Sheffield, UK. The participants included two groups: people with an age‐related visual impairment, and people with a visual impairment since birth or early childhood. Framework analysis was used to analyse the findings.

Four major themes were identified: health and social care information needs, sources of health and social care information, possible improvements, and “intervening variables”.

In this study only a small proportion of the health and social care information needs of visually impaired people were currently being met. There was minimal co‐ordination of information between the different information providers. Visually impaired people were dependent on acquiring and seeking out additional information from a wide variety of sources.

This paper provides new insights into the health and social care information needs of visually impaired people and their sources of information, and starts to fill gaps identified in an earlier systematic review. The paper reinforces the view that visually impaired people are a heterogeneous group, with different needs according to their visual impairments.