Research
Refractive Error in Children in an Urban Population in New Delhi
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of refractive error and related visual impairment in school-aged children of India.
Cluster sampling methodology was used to randomly select 7008 children from 3426 households.
The prevalence of uncorrected, baseline (presenting), and best corrected visual acuity of 20/40 or worse in the better eye was 6.4%, 4.9%, and 0.81%, respectively.
Refractive error was the cause in 81.7% of eyes with vision impairment, amblyopia in 4.4%, and retinal disorders in 4.7%.
Hyperopia was present in 7.7% of children and myopia was present in 7.4%.
Myopia was more prevalent in children of fathers with higher levels of education.
Low vision due to uncorrected refractive error is a major public health problem in urban school-aged children in India.
This article was identified as a reference for a VII-commissioned systematic review on the Impact of URE on Children.