Lost to follow-up: tracing cataract patients who did not come back
Programme quality team. A pilot in two hospitals in FY2024: of 386 patients traced at home in western Kenya and Nepal after missing follow-up, 68.4% had a good outcome, against 77.6% of those who returned. The method the Foundation adopted across sight restoration in FY2025.
Cataract programmes report the outcomes of patients who come back for follow-up. Patients who do not come back are more likely to have had a poor result, so reported outcomes are flattering. This working paper describes a pilot in two hospitals in FY2024, in which outreach workers traced a random sample of patients who missed follow-up and measured their sight at home.
Of 386 patients traced, 68.4% had a good outcome, against 77.6% of patients seen at the hospital. We describe how to turn a traced sample into a range for the true share of good outcomes, and the cost: about ¥2,900 per patient traced.
Key findings
- Tracing a sample of 10% of patients who miss follow-up is enough to give a useful range.
- Most patients traced had missed follow-up because of distance and cost, not because they were unhappy with the result.
- The method was adopted for all sight restoration partners from FY2025.
How to cite
Programme quality team, Kiroshi Foundation (2025). Lost to follow-up: tracing cataract patients who did not come back. KF-WP-2025-04. Tokyo: Kiroshi Foundation. kiroshi.org/research/publications/kf-wp-2025-04/
For the full text, write to research@kiroshi.org.