Prevalence of ocular morbidities among children’s attending ophthalmology OPD in tertiary care hospital, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

Introduction:Ocular morbidities among pediatric age group play a major role in their education in addition to occurrence of blindness in our community. Even in India, preventable and treatable causes like cataract, refractive error still contribute to more than 80% preventable blindness. Material and Methods: The current research paper is acrosssectional study, conducted in Saveetha medical college and hospital. The data pooled for the study was conducted from January 2019 to March 2019 for a period of 3 months. Allchildren below the age of15 years attending ophthalmology outpatient departmentwere included in the study. Ethical clearance and informed verbal consent was obtained and detailed ophthalmic examination was done. Results: 271 patients were included in the study, 122weremales and 149 were females. All the patients were divided into three broad age groups, 0-5 years, 6-10years and 11-15 years. In the current study overall refractive error (54.6%) was the most widespread ocular morbidity. Allergic conjunctivitis (19.1%), foreign body (8.1%),Chalazion (4%), viral conjunctivitis (2.6%)and squint (2.2%)are other common morbidities. Conclusion: The present research paper suggests refractive error, allergic conjunctivitis, foreign body in eye and chalazion are the important ocular morbidities seen in children. Nearly all of them are treatable or preventable. Theoccurrence of refractive error is high among children and is the main cause of amblyopia.