Screening for Visual Impairment among Primary School Students in Baghdad Al-Karkh

Abstract

Abstract Background: Visual impairments are well-known to effect school student's academic performance along with their quality of life. On encouraging note, visual impairments can be well managed if they are detected early by visual screening.Objectives: To assess the visual acuity of the primary school students and to find out the prevalence of visual impairment (VI) along with description of some characteristics of visually impaired students.Subjects and method: A cross- sectional study was conducted among governmental primary schools students in Baghdad/ Al-Karkh from 1st of Dec 2016 to the end of April 2017.The data was collecting by structural questionnaires to obtained information about some socio-demographic and health risk factors. Vision screening was performed by Snellen E-chart to assess the visual acuity (VA) of study participants. Results: The total number of students enrolled in the study was 2104. Visual acuity of 6/6 was the most frequent measure, in the right eye was (69.49%) and the left eye was (69.96%). The prevalence of visual impairment (VI) among the study group was 5.4%, boys and girls have the same rate (50%) of VI. Refractive error could be the main reason of visual impairment (83.3%) according to the pinhole test results. The highest rate of VI (62.4%) was detected among students in age group (10-12) years and in grade 4th and 5th students (23.7%). 56.1% of visually impaired students had a family history of wearing glasses. Visual impairment was more prevalent among students spent more than two hours in studying and reading books 71.1%, while only 28.1% who watched TV for more than 3 hours had VI.Conclusion: Early and periodic eye examination for school-aged children is recommended. As well as students, parents, and teachers must be educated about the early detection of VI and correction with eyeglasses to prevent progression of visual impairment.