Colour vision deficiency: the ‘unseen’ disability

Urinalysis, electrocardiography electrode placement, peripheral venous canula choice, blood specimen bottle choice, cardiac monitoring electrode placement and central line care/management, to name but a few procedures, all share commonalities other than being clinical nursing skills. They all require a degree of colour perception—but what if someone is colour blind?

Although often described as colour blindness, this is the wrong term for the condition. The broader definition is colour vision deficiency (CVD), of which there are several variants (Table 1). In fact, it is rare to be completely ‘blind’ to colour, a condition that is known as monochromacy or achromatopsia.

CVD is normally inherited by children from their parents through a genetic fault, which manifests as cells missing from the cones in the eyes, or the cones functioning incorrectly (NHS website, 2019). It is likely to be significantly underdiagnosed and is a condition that many people do not understand, or realise what it is and how it affects those who have it, and there also is little awareness of its prevalence.