Volume : IV, Issue : VI, June - 2015

PREVALENCE OF REFRACTIVE ERROR IN SEMI URBAN SCHOOL CHILDREN

Dr. M. Meera Alias Devasena

Abstract :

 Introduction: About 153 million people above 5 years of age are visually impaired due to uncorrected refractive errors. Poor vision due to refractive error affects children learning in schools considerably. Myopia is the most common refractive error in children. The main aim of this study is to gather information about the prevalence of Refractive Error in semi urban school children aged 5–16 years. Materials and Methods: This Cross Sectional Study was done in school children aged 5–16 years. All children from class 1 to class 10 in a semi urban higher secondary school were included in the study. Visual acuity less than 6/9 in one or both eyes was classified as visually impaired. The sample size was calculated by the prevalence of Refractive error as 20% 6 with an alpha error of 5% and relative precision 20%. Data entry and analysis were done by SPSS 15.0 software . Results: This cross sectional study was done among 430 school children aged 5– 16 years of semi urban School children aged 5–16 years.Out of which 218 (50.7%) were male children and 212 (49.3%) were females. The prevalence of refractive error in males was 10.7% (46) and 9.8% (42) in females. The overall prevalence of refractive error was found to be 20.5% with 95% confidence interval 16.7% to 24.3%. Among the type of refractive errors, the commonest one is simple Myopia (79.6%) followed by simple myopic astigmatism (13.6%) and 6.1% had simple hypermetropia. Conclusion: Prevalence is on the higher side due to over use of electronic gadgets by school children. Parents as well as school teachers should be educated about the signs and symptoms of uncorrected refractive errors.Routine school health screening for refractive errors is very essential for prevention of this cause of avoidable Childhood Blindness.

Keywords :

Article: Download PDF   DOI : 10.36106/ijsr  

Cite This Article:

Dr. M.Meera Alias Devasena Prevalence of Refractive Error in Semi Urban School Children International Journal of Scientific Research, Vol : 4, Issue : 6 June 2015


Number of Downloads : 1089


References :