THE PREVALENCE OF UNCORRECTED REFRACTIVE ERRORS AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN IN UNIVERSITY OF BENIN TEACHING HOSPITAL STAFF SCHOOL, USELU, EDO STATE

ABSTRACT

Refractive errors are the product of a mismatch between the axial length of the eye and its optical power, creating blurred vision. Uncorrected refractive error is the most common cause of vision impairment. It can be corrected by using spectacle lenses,contact lenses or Surgery. It impacts negatively on the learning and academic achievements of school-children. This was a cross sectional study aimed at determining the prevalence of uncorrected refractive errors among school children and involved 214 subjects between 5-17years ,111 boys and 103girls who were selected randomly from different arms of classes in the university of Benin Teaching Hospital Staff School . Detailed Optometric tests were carried out on the selected students and descriptive statistics/chisquare of the software statistical package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 . The prevalence of refractive errors was 87.380% . Hyperopia had the highest and equal prevalence in both male and females (21.96%). This was followed by a lesser proportion of myopic students with percentage of (14.02%) for males and (13.08%) for females and a low proportion of female students (7.94%) were Astigmatic with the proportion of males being (8.41%). There was no significant difference in uncorrected refractive errors between genders (p = 0.38). There was a significant difference of uncorrected refractive errors between the ages (p= 0.047). It was recommended that regular examination should be observed and made compulsory for early detection and treatment of refractive errors to prevent visual impairment and the struggles that accompanies it due to uncorrected refractive errors. In conclusion, the prevalence of refractive error was of significant value among school children in University of Benin Teaching Hospital Staff School, Uselu,Edo State.