Visual impairment in urban school children of low-income families in Kolkata, India

Abstract

To evaluate pattern of visual impairment in school children from low-income families in Kolkata, India, an institutional cross-sectional study was conducted among 2570 children of 10 primary schools. Ocular examination including refraction was done and pattern of visual impairment and refractive error was studied. The age range was 6-14 years. Refractive error was seen in 14.7%. Only 4 children were already wearing correction. Myopia and hypermetropia was present in 307 (11.9%) and 65 (2.5%) children, respectively. Visual acuity of less than 6/12 in better eye was present in 109 (4.2%) and 5 (0.2%) children pre- and post-correction, respectively. Eighteen children had amblyopia. Although prevalence of refractive error in this group is less compared to school children of all income categories reported from other cities of India, it is more compared to school children of all income categories from the same city. Refractive error mostly remains uncorrected in this group.

A Study of Prevalence of Ocular Morbidities in School Going Children in a Rural District of Manipur

“…[13] , and 14.7% in urban school children of lowincome families in Kolkata. [14] , but lower than the finding of prevalence of 23.67% refractive error in a study conducted at a Tertiary Eye Care Hospital in Kolkata. [15] However, the findings in this study are much higher than that of urban and rural Maharashtra of 5.46% and 2.63% respectively.…”

Prevalence of Myopia and Its Risk Factors in Urban School Children in Delhi: The North India Myopia Study (NIM Study)

“…Though the prevalence of myopia is low compared to those reported from other countries in East Asia [5–16], it is higher than those previously reported by studies from India [17–19] and Nepal [20]. Due to different refractive error cut offs, different sample population and different methodologies of the previous Indian studies, it is difficult to state whether this difference indicates an actual increase in the prevalence but 13.1% prevalence in children in a country of 1.2 billion with over 20% in 5–15 years age-group, implies that myopia is a significant public health problem in India.…”

“…In East Asia the prevalence of myopia has been reported to be very high particularly in Japan [5], South Korea [6,7], Singapore [8], Taiwan [9,10], Hong Kong [11–12], and China [13–16] though much lower rates have been reported from South Asia and India[17–21]. While there are no large scale studies in India for assessing the magnitude of myopia in the school going population, available studies show higher prevalence rates in urban areas compared to rural areas [17–19]. Besides risk of ametropic amblyopia in growing children and the inconvenience and cost of spectacles or contact lenses, 10–20% have high myopia predisposing them to severe irreversible visual impairment [22].…”

A Study of Visual acuity among the students in a Rural Girls High School of West Bengal

“…among urban school children of low-income families in Kolkata found that visual acuity of less than 6/12 in better eye was present in 4.2% children. 9 According to NPCB Survey (2001-02) among children 5-15 years of age, visual impairment was 6.4% as compared to 4.5% in present study. In Turkey (2009), Unsal A et.…”