Multimodal Physician Intervention to Detect Amblyopia (Recruiting Title "Equipping Primary Care Physicians to Improve Care for Children")

Despite decades of research showing adverse neural consequences of abnormal vision, little has changed for amblyopic children. Over the past 40 years, data have shown that most children with amblyopia are detected late. In our health care system, primary care physicians play a pivotal role in translating findings about amblyopia into practice. But, our experience with the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) / NEI expert panel on Vision Screening in the Preschool Child and the MCHB/ American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Project Universal Preschool Vision Screening revealed that primary care physicians get very little training about amblyopia and risk factors. Consequently, many do not screen aggressively for these conditions.

The University of Alabama Departments of Optometry, Pediatrics and Continuing Medical Education, in collaboration Medicaid Agencies in Alabama, South Carolina and Illinois, have developed a novel, internet-based, multi-modal strategy to increase the understanding and recognition of amblyopia and its risk factors by pediatricians and primary care physicians in office based settings. We have designed a cluster-randomized, controlled clinical trial to test whether our intervention results in improved performance by "intervention" physicians compared to control physicians (exposed to a web-based intervention for pediatric blood pressure screening and adolescent chlamydia screening). Our design, along with pre / post-intervention and control / intervention performance measures, will evaluate changes in practice attributable to the intervention versus those occurring from other sources over time. Our final analysis will show whether preschool patients of intervention physicians are more likely to be identified with strabismus or amblyopia. This research forges a critical link between the truly phenomenal body of amblyopia research fostered by the NEI and the health care offered to American children.