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.

Publication date

December 7, 2016

Publication

Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science

Authors

Murthy, G.V.S., Gupta, S.K., Ellwein, L.B., Munoz, S.R., Pokharel, G.P., Sanga, L. and Bachani, D.
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