The Prevalence of Ocular Disorders in 1000 Queensland Primary Schoolchildren

Abstract

This study was designed to establish the prevalence of ocular disorders in a paediatric population. There have been numerous studies conducted in this area with similar objectives. However, the majority of these adopted principally visual screening protocols, whilst others comprised incomplete examinations. A feature of this study is the inclusion of both cycloplegic refraction and ophthalmoscopy under mydriasis. Almost without exception other studies omit these procedures.One early and comprehensive ophthalmological study involving visual examination of 7033 young men was performed in England by S0rsby.l In this study distant visual acuity (using a Snellen chart) was measured, eye movements were tested and cycloplegic refraction was performed. The results of the study were: (i) over 80% of the men tested had full vision, unaided by glasses; (ii) about 11% of the men had significant refractive errors (hypermetropia and myopia) requiring optical care; (iii) astigmatic errors were present in 10% of the men tested; (iv) squint (strabismus) was present in 4% of the men; and (v) severe amblyopia ex anopsia was present in only 0.5% of the men.Kohler and Stigmar carried out a visual screening programme of 21 78 seven-year-old children in Sweden.* The initial visual screening consisted of a distant visual acuity test. Only children who had sufficiently poor visual acuity (<6/9 in one or both eyes), were referred to an ophthalmologist for a full visual examination. Three hundred and ten (14.2%) of the children initially screened were referred. These children were then classified according to their state of visual acuity, refraction and extraocular movements. Altogether, 49% of the referred children (7% of all those screened) had significant eye disorders and required treatment.Cohen carried out a visual screening programme on 65 1 prekindergarteners (about two to three years younger than the current study's target population) in Philadelphia, USA.3 The children screened were predominantly black (83%) and from lower-class families. The prevalence of significant visual defects was 12%. The similarity between these results and those of other studies involving Caucasian groups suggest that in this case race and socioeconomic status have little influence on the development of visual defects.

Prevalence of heterophoria and associations with refractive error, heterotropia and ethnicity in Australian school children

“…Consistent with other studies, we found that orthophoria was the main phoric state at distance fixation2 3 5 8 and the distribution of heterophoria size was leptokurtic 3 9 19 20. In our population, the distribution was skewed towards exophoria in both the 6- and 12-year-old children.…”

“…While many studies of similarly aged children have reported that orthophoria is the most frequent state for near fixation,2 5 8 we found that exophoria predominated. After stratification, this finding persisted in the European Caucasian and East Asian populations.…”

“…However, previous studies of children are in agreement that orthophoria predominates at distance fixation,2 3 5 with a relatively tight (leptokurtic) distribution 3 4 9 10. Heterophoria prevalence has been reported for European Caucasian populations,2–5 but there are no reports for East Asian samples.…”

Little evidence for an epidemic of myopia in Australian primary school children over the last 30 years

“…A number of studies were carried out in the early 1970s and the 1980s on relatively large groups of unselected primary school children from the socio-economic extremes (generally aged 5 to 12 years), and indicated a prevalence of myopia ranging from approximately 3% to 13% (see Table 1) [25-29]. Two of those early studies investigated children largely from underprivileged, rural, families [26,27], and the other was of children from several, middle to upper socio-economic class private schools [25].…”

Familial aggregation of hyperopia in an elderly population of siblings in Salisbury, Maryland

“…6 Although the number of children with accommodative esotropia is not well known, strabismus has been estimated to affect between 0.5% and 4% of children. [7][8][9][10] Esodeviations comprise >50% of this, 11 with refractive accommodative esotropia clearly playing a significant role. Evidence exists suggesting that hyperopia may be under strong genetic control.…”