Prevalence of vision impairment and refractive error in school learners in Calabar, Nigeria
African Vision and Eye Health
| Field | Value | |
| Title | Prevalence of vision impairment and refractive error in school learners in Calabar, Nigeria | |
| Creator | Ebri, Anne E. Govender, Pirindhavellie Naidoo, Kovin S. | |
| Description | Background: Uncorrected refractive error could negatively affect learning and academic performance, there is still inadequate information for planning school health.Aim: To determine the proportion of students with vision impairment because of uncorrected refractive error, and prevalent types among learners aged 10–18 years.Setting: The study site included two of 18 local government areas of the Cross River State in Nigeria, with 23 public and mission secondary schools.Methods: A two-stage cluster sampling method was used to enrol 4241 study participants from eight selected secondary schools.Results: The prevalence of vision impairment (presenting visual acuity worse than 6/12) was 7.9% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.17% – 8.6%). The prevalence of vision impairment because of refractive error was 7.2% (95% CI: 6.41% – 7.96%) in the better eye. Astigmatism was the predominant type of refractive error with a prevalence of 4.2% (95% CI: 3.6% – 4.8%), followed by myopia (1.72%; 95% CI: 1.3% – 2.1%) and hyperopia (1.3%; 95% CI: 0.9% – 1.6%). There were statistically significant differences in proportions of female participants who presented with myopic astigmatism (30.8%; p 0.012). Statistically significant difference in proportions was found in older (33.3%; p 0.0004) and male (29.6%; p 0.0003) participants who presented with hyperopic astigmatism compared to younger and female participants, respectively. Myopia accounted for 4.8% (95% CI: 4.2% – 5.5%) and was significantly higher in female participants (5.5%; p 0.033).Conclusion: Refractive error was the major cause of vision impairment and myopic astigmatism was the predominant type of refractive error among secondary school children in Calabar. | |
| Publisher | AOSIS | |
| Date | 2019-09-23 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/aveh.v78i1.487 | |
| Source | African Vision and Eye Health; Vol 78, No 1 (2019); 8 pages 2410-1516 2413-3183 | |
| Language | eng | |
| Relation |
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:
https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/487/1052
https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/487/1051
https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/487/1053
https://avehjournal.org/index.php/aveh/article/view/487/1050
|
|
ADVERTISEMENT
