Study of Vision Screening in School Children between 5 and 15 Years

In India, children make up 31% of the populace. There are 1.4 million blind children in the globe, according to estimates. Another 7 million people have low vision, and 10 million toddlers have a correctable refractive error that impairs their vision. The prevalence of blindness in India, despite the fact that no populationbased national study has been conducted, is thought to be 0.8/1000 children in the age range of 0 to 15 years. It's crucial to identify and address preventable eye diseases and visual impairment in children as early as possible. Materials: Using the standard opthal examination procedure, visual screening was conducted. Snellen's charts, common near vision charts, torch lights, direct ophthalmoscopy, retinoscopy, and auto refractor were used to test children. Results: Of the 2016 school-aged children who were evaluated, 1040 (51.6%) of them were men and 976 (48.4%) were women. Prevalence of ocular morbidity was 283 (14.04%), refractive errors were 222 (11.01%), strabismus was 6 (0.30%), amblyopia was 4 (0.20%), vitamin A deficiency was 5 (0.25%), allergic conjunctivitis was 19 (0.94%), and other eye morbidities like blepheritis, hordeolum, coloboma, etc. were 27 (1.34%). Out of 222 kids with refractive errors, 154 (or 7.6%) had myopia, 38 (or 1.88%) had hypermetropia, and 30 (or 1.48%) had astigmatism, indicating high incidence of myopia (P value 0.05) compared to other issues. Conclusion: It was found that school-aged adolescents had a high prevalence of ocular morbidities and more refractive errors. It backs up the suggestion that vision testing of schoolchildren in developing nations could be a helpful instrument in identifying treatable causes of decreased vision, particularly refractive errors, and in minimising long-term permanent visual impairment. School children form an important large target group for screening ocular morbidities