Incidence of Refractive Error in Children Attending Ophthalmology

Purpose: To determine the refractive errors among children within the age 5-12 attending Ophthalmology OPD in Saveetha Medical College. Method: A retrospective observational study of patients within the age of 5-12 whose unaided vision were poorer than 20/20 which improved with pinhole, was done. Overall refractive examination was with appropriate cycloplegia for age was done on 164 patients. Results: Out of 164 eligible patients, the proportion of Myopia, Hypermetropia, Simple myopic astigmatism, simple hypermetropic astigmatism, Compound myopic astigmatism, Compound hypermetropic astigmatism and mixed astigmatism were 50.60 %, 7.92 %, 15.85 %, 1.82 %, 19.51 %, 3.65 % and 0.60 % respectively. It was found that Males are affected more than females. Myopia is found to be the most common refractive error among the age group 5-12 years, followed by Compound myopic astigmatism and Simple myopic astigmatism. The least commonly occurring refractive error is found to be Mixed astigmatism with the least proportion of 0.60 %. Conclusion: This study has given data on the Incidence of refractive error in children attending ophthalmology department in Saveetha Medical College. It has been found that Myopia is the most commonly occurring refractive error in children followed by compound myopic astigmatism. This study will help the physicians to have an outline on the incidence of patients with refractive error attending Health-care centers. This will also lie as a basement of other community based studies.