Ocular disorders among schoolboys in a high-altitude area of Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

A study was conducted to measure the prevalence of eye problems amongst schoolboys in a high-altitude area of Saudi Arabia and to compare the findings with those in schoolboys from a low-altitude area of the country. We selected 971 schoolboys randomly from six of the 17 elementary schools for boys in Abha in the Asir region, southwestern Saudi Arabia. All children were subjected to a standard ophthalmologic examination. The same examination had been used in 1982 in the study of schoolboys in Al-Asiah, a low-altitude area in the Qasim region of Saudi Arabia, with which the data from the Abha study were compared. There was a higher prevalence in Abha of both refractive errors [30.6% vs 12.1%] and allergic conjunctivitis [10.7% vs 1.1%] while there was significantly lower prevalence in Abha than in Al-Asiah of trachoma [4.7% vs 14.8%], bacterial conjunctivitis [0.1% vs 7.9%] and strabismus [3.0% vs 5.3%]. Such differences in prevalence could be attributed to altitude, climate, socio-economic factors, or a combination of these. Further studies are needed to determine whether the findings of this study are altitude dependent