Visual impairment;

Purpose: The worldwide prevalence of refractive errors (RE), which is a common cause of treat-able visual impairment among children, varies widely. We assessed the prevalence of correctable visual impairment (uncorrected RE) in primary school children in Qassim, Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 21 primary schools. A total of 5176 children (mean age 9.5 ± 1.8 years), 2573 boys (49.7%) and 2603 girls (50.3%), underwent a comprehen-sive eye examination. The examinations consisted of visual acuity, autorefraction, cover test, ocular motility, pupillary evaluation, anterior segment examination, cycloplegic auto-refraction and dilated fundus examination with direct ophthalmoscopy. The children were divided into groups based on their age and gender. Results: The overall prevalence of RE in the better eye was 18.6 % (n = 963), and the prevalence of uncorrected RE 16.3 % (n = 846), with only 2.3 % (n = 127) of children wearing spectacles during examination. The prevalence of uncorrected myopia (5.8%) and myopic astigmatism (5.4%) was higher compared to that of hyperopic astigmatism (2.7%), mixed astigmatism (1.7%) and hyperopia (0.7%). The anisometropia prevalence was 3.6%. Risks for astigmatism, myopia an