Introduction
Childhood blindness is among the commonest cause of blind-person year, as the number of years
lived with blindness by blind children is almost the same as the total number of blind years due to
age related cataract. So, the economical, psychological and social consequence of childhood
blindness is manifold.
A study conducted in government schools from Nepal reported prevalence7
of myopia to be 4.3%,
but no studies have been done among private school students. There have been some reports,
which have quoted the association of developmental myopia with, excessive near work. Thus a
study was designed to evaluate the children among private schools so as to see whether there is
any difference in pattern of ocular morbidity and prevalence of myopia between private and
government school children.
Methods and materials
Purposive selection of two private schools was done and students were screened in detail after
taking verbal consents from their parents. Student underwent detail ocular evaluation including
vision test, cover test, convergence reserve measurement, color vision test, slit lamp
Biomicroscopy, Retinoscopy, Subjective refraction and fundus evaluation.
Results
A total of 1816 students were evaluated, out of which 52.8% were males and 47.2 % were
females. Among the total, 65.8% had no ocular abnormalities and 34.2% had some form of ocular
disorders. Refractive error is the commonest problem seen accounting for 21.8% out of total,
followed by infective disorders, which accounted for 7.2%, 3.5% of them were noted to have
Orthoptic problem including various types of strabismus, and 2.2% were color blind.
Conclusion
The prevalence of refractive error among private school children seems to be higher. Color
blindness also seems to be prevalent among these children. This kind of school screening would
help in detecting the eye problems timely and thus would reduce the ocular morbidity as well as
prevents children from going blind unnecessarily.