DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i03.031

Pages: 777-780

The prevalence of blind children in India is surmounting with an estimated 320,000 blind children, higher than any other country in the world. Considering the fact that 30% of India’s blind population loses their sight before the age of 20 years, the importance of early detection and treatment of ocular diseases and visual impairment in young is of high priority. The Aims and Objectives is to study the prevalence and pattern of ocular morbidity in school children, as well as to study treatable and non-treatable causes. The Materials and Methods is the data collection instrument was a pretested structured questionnaire. The preliminary examination of school children was done at the respective schools. Detailed history, including family history, about the current problems and past problem was recorded. Chi-square test was used to observe associations of ocular morbidity in respect to age, sex, treatable and non treatable diseases. Level of significance was assessed at 5%. In Results a cross-sectional study was conducted in 16 schools of Gwalior region involving 5000 children between the age group of 5-16 years. Prevalence of ocular morbidity in school going children was found to be 14.5%. Among 725 cases of ocular diseases, prevalence of refractive error was 5.52%, Vitamin A deficiency was 3.66%, conjunctivitis was 1.62%, squint was 0.86%, injury was 0.54%, blepharitis was 0.48%, chalazion 0.42%, stye was 0.42%, pterygium was 0.36%, corneal opacity was 0.26%, ptosis was 0.24%, developmental cataract was 0.08% and colour blindness was 0.04%.