Vision Related Quality of Life, Sport Activities and Academic Performance Among Myopic School Going Children: A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

This Prospective cross-sectional study was conducted among 129 children aged from 8 to 16 years during vision screening program to assess the impact of Myopia on Quality of Life, sport activities and academic performance among school going children. Comprehensive eye examinations including detailed history, visual acuity assessment, refraction, torch light examination were carried out among children fulfilling the inclusion criteria of the study. Also the pre-validated questionnaire related to the quality of life, sport activities, and academic performance was administered to the participants to elicit the responses. In this study, 45(34.88%) participants were male and 84(65.12%) were female with the mean age of 12±1.25years. Majority of the participants 103(79.84%) were facing difficulty in recognizing their friends or known standing at far distance followed by 100(77.52%) were facing difficulty in reading and writing from class board. We found that 91(70.54%) myopic children preferred indoor activities/game over outdoor games which were 38(29.45%).  The time spend by the majority of myopic children74 (57.36%) on outdoor activities was 2-4hr per week. Also, 87(67.44%) children were facing difficulty in focusing ball while catching. We concluded that uncorrected myopia severely affects the quality of life, sport activities and academic performance of school going children. Myopia is associated with increased indoor activities and decreased outdoor activities. Awareness needs to be spread among children, their parents and teachers about the impact of uncorrected refractive error. Vision screening program at regular interval could address the undetected cases of myopia.