Refractive Errors in Private Schools; A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Objectives: The objective of this study was to quantify the magnitude of refractive errors in private sector high school children of Lahore, Pakistan.

Methods: This analytical, cross sectional study was conducted in private schools of Lahore during the period of August to December 2017. Multistage simple random sampling was adopted for the selection of study subjects. Screening of refractive errors was managed in the schools according to defined protocols. The data was collected on the pre-tested questionnaire, entered into the version 23 of IBM SPSS and analyzed by the use of statistical tools.

Results: Out of the total, 1000 study subject, 500 (50%) were boys, 500 (50%) girls, 500 (50%) from rural and 500 (50%) from the urban areas. The age ranged between 9 to 18 years with a mean of 13.01 ± 1.84.  Refractive error was present in 168 (16.8%) of the participants. Myopia was the leading type (52.4%) followed by astigmatism (25.6%) and hypermetropia (22%). Gender and urban based results were found significant at p value of < 0.05 (<0.001) and (0.001) respectively with a high prevalence in girls and urban areas.

Conclusion: Refractive errors are prevalent among a considerable number (16.8%) of the private school children at Lahore. There is a significant difference among the boys, girls, rural and urban settings. High prevalence is found among female students and urban areas.