Darge, Haile Fentahun (2014) The Prevalence of Visual Acuity Impairment and Color Blindness on School Age Children of Two Primary Schools in Addis Ababa. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.
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Abstract
Vision is the primary means of integration between individuals and the external environments. For a normal eye, light is focused on the retina. This message would then be sent to the brain to be interpreted as a message. There are different factors that will affect normal vision such as infection, malnutrition, lack of vitamin A rich food, refractive error, cataract, etc. Visual impairment is major cause of blindness and mortality in developing countries where there is no enough health care services and because of malnutrition. The main aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of visual acuity impairment and color blindness in school children. The study was conducted in randomly selected one governmental and one private primary schools in Addis Ababa from Sep.10 to Nov.30, 2013. A cross sectional study design was utilized and using random sampling with estimated sample size calculation, 378 students in two schools were involved in the study. All the school age children in the selected schools who have a written consent from their parents were included. Snellen chart was used for visual acuity test and color blindness was determined using Ishihara’s tests. Students who have visual acuity ≤ 6/12 and color blindness were further interviewed and diagnosed by ophthalmologist to identify the causes of visual acuity impairment. Structural questionnaires were also prepared and filled by parents to know the socio demographic features. The collected data was manually cleared and checked and the result was presented in the form of table and graph using SPSS version 20. Although prevalence of blindness is high as people aged, it is also a major problem in children in developing countries like Ethiopia because of malnutrition and limitation of health service. The study found the prevalence of visual acuity impairment; VA ≤ 6/12 in either eye was 5.8% (3.2% female, 2.6% male); VA< 6/18 in either eye was 1.1% and VA < 6/18 in better eye was 0.53%. The prevalence of color blindness in this study was 4.2% (1.6% female, 2.6% male); 2.9% deutran, 1.1% protan and 0.3% color weakness. Although the prevalence of visual impairment in children was very low, priority should be given to them because the health of children would have high cost for economic, social and educational development of the community. Most visually impaired children showed low compliance with the use of spectacle. Thus, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and other stakeholders should look at different strategies among students to have behavioral change about the use of spectacles. Further studies to be done to determine magnitude and severity of CVD using anomaloscope, visual impairment of near vision using jaeger eye chart and risk factors for visual problems. Early detection of visual defect of an individual is very important in life to make decision on future career or to take correction.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | visual acuity, color blindness, prevalence and visual impairment |
| Subjects: | L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB1501 Primary Education Q Science > QP Physiology |
| Divisions: | Africana |
| Depositing User: | Emmanuel Ndorimana |
| Date Deposited: | 02 Jul 2018 11:43 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Jul 2018 11:43 |
| URI: | http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/6367 |
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