Screening of school children between age group of 5-15 years to detect the prevalence of amblyopia and type of amblyopia

Abstract

Background: Amblyopia is the most common cause of monocular vision loss in children and as amblyopia is a major preventable and treatable cause of pediatric low vision, early detection and treatment of amblyopia is very important to reduce the prevalence of amblyopia. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted during the school health check up visits conducted by ophthalmology department in tertiary care teaching hospital for screening of eye disorders in school children who belongs to the age group of 5-15 years over a period of 1 year in which 813 children underwent screening, among them 110 children with the reduced vision were referred to hospital for detailed ophthalmic evaluation which includes cycloplegic refraction and dilated fundus examination. Amblyopia was detected in children with reduced best corrected visual acuity. Results: A total of 813 study subjects were screened. Out of them 110 (13.5%) were found to have diminished vision. When the study subjects with diminished vision were subjected for further tests, 18 (2.2%), (p value is 0.494) of them were found to have amblyopia. Amblyopia was present in 10 (18.9%) females and 8 (14%) males. Anisometropic amblyopia was the most common type of amblyopia found in 10 (55.6%) study subjects, followed by meridional and strabismus type of amblyopia in 4 cases each (22.2%). Among strabismus, exotropia was seen in more study subjects 4(0.5%) than esotropia in 2 cases (0.2%). A higher number of moderate grade of amblyopia was seen than mild grade of amblyopia.Conclusion: The results indicate the importance of screening school going children for amblyopia and the importance of early detection and treatment.