Pattern of Ocular Morbidity in School Going Children

ABSTRACT

We wanted to determine the prevalence of ocular morbidity among school going children between ages of 6 and 16 yrs. in public schools of urban and rural areas of Kanpur city and study its pattern. METHODSA cross-sectional prospective study was done among a total of 2105 school going children (rural - 956 and urban -1149), 6-16 years of age in rural and urban areas of Kanpur city. A comprehensive ocular examination was done with the help of torch light, slit lamp and +90 D and direct ophthalmoscope to examine the anterior & posterior segment pathologies. RESULTSOcular morbidity in the rural population was 817 (no. of diagnosed cases) of which 43.30 % were in rural areas of which 63.52 % were males. 35.07 % were in urban areas of which 57.81 % were males. The most common type of ocular morbidity in rural population was refractive error (15.9 %), followed by vitamin A deficiency (12.86 %), blepharitis (5.43 %), squint (3.66 %), amblyopia (2.87 %), stye (2.40 %), ptosis (1.67%), colour blindness (1.15 %), and posterior segment pathologies (0.19 %).in urban areas, the most common cause was refractive error (26.19 %), followed by squint (2.78 %), amblyopia (1.91 %), vitamin A deficiency (1.91 %), blepharitis (1.83 %), colour blindness (1.21 %), stye (0.70 %), ptosis (0.35 %) and posterior segment pathologies (0.08 %). The difference was statistically extremely significant with p = 0.0001. CONCLUSIONSRefractive error was the most common ocular morbidity in both urban and rural areas, but Vitamin A deficiency and blepharitis were more common in rural areas. In rural areas malnutrition seems to be the major cause of ocular morbidity while more use of gadgets and less outdoor activity seems to play vital role in urban areas.