A descriptive study on the prevalence of refractive error among school going children in selected schools of Maharashtra

Abstract

Purpose:

Refractive error is an important component of the priority disease “childhood blindness”; within the vision 2020’ initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness by the World Health Organization. In India, children represent 39% of the population i.e. 1.21 billion. Refractive error is one of the preventable causes of visual impairment in their developing age. 

Methods:

A cross-sectional study with mixed design was carried out on 400 participants selected by purposive sampling, aged 9-14 years of two schools, one from urban and other from rural area in Maharashtra. 300 participants from rural 100 were from the urban area. The study included a detailed ocular examination with visual acuity testing using the Snellen’s chart, Jaeger Eye Chart and Ishihara’s embedded color test and pre-designed and pretested Interview Schedule for biographic data, symptomatology and the determinants of refractive errors. Priority references were scheduled in the nearby Hospital and Primary Health Care Unit for children identified with impaired visual acuity or any eye problem.

Results:

Overall prevalence of refractive errors was found to be 27.75%.  Of the 47% with uncorrected refractive errors in the urban area, 66% were affected with Myopia.  Overall, the prevalence of refractive errors was found to be more in urban areas (47%) than the rural areas (21.3%). The female participants (U-52.31%; R-24.84%) had more prevalence of refractive error as compared to males (U-37.14%, R-17.69%) in both rural and urban areas (p<0.05). Uncorrected refractive errors were seen in the rural area. 96.88% of these were affected with Myopia and 3.1% had hyperopia. The prevalence of mild refractive error was greater than moderate and severe refractive error. In mild & severe refractive error, the left eye had greater error than the right eye; in moderate refractive error, the right eye of the participants had greater refractive error than the left eye.  The primary section children had common symptoms such as difficulty in reading and blurred vision.  The secondary section children had headaches, blurred vision and eyestrain.Personal achievement has greatly influenced (p<0.05) the causation of refractive errors in the rural population (p>0.05).

Conclusion:

Refractive error is of public health magnitude among school children of 11-16 years of age. School screening programs in our country for early detection of treatable disease are useful to detect and correct refractive error in children.