Objective: The study was aimed at assessing & creating awareness of those attending eye department of our tertiary care hospital to save the precious sight and take a step forward in preventing this avoidable blindness. Methods: All the participants aged 40 yrs. or older, attending the eye department of this hospital of central India included in this crosssectional survey conducted from March 2013 to February 2014, were subjected to a prestructured questionnaires. Data on demographics, and awareness collected and analyzed. Simultaneously a constant effort was made to create awareness among the selected group. Result: Randomly selected 924 patients attending the outpatient eye department participated in this study. The mean age of participants was 52±24.yrs. No significant difference in male/female participation. All patients belonged to urban and semiurban areas with almost similar ethnicity. Among the total participants, only 12.98% had heard of glaucoma and was found to have directly related to the level of literacy. Besides these, other disease groups like diabetes and hypertension also included in the study to find out the awareness of glaucoma in these high risk groups. Conclusions: Awareness of glaucoma in this part of country is very poor, more so the knowledge of the disease. Creating awareness through massmedia and community health education programmes will be very effective step in preventing this irreversible blindness.

Keywords: Awareness; Knowledge; Primary Glaucoma; Literacy.