[Study of refractive changes inTimiş.county]

The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of common refractive errors în children investigated at the "Louis Turcanu" Hospital's Ambulatory from Timisoara. This was a cross-sectional study done from January to June 2002 în the Ophthalmologic Medical Office. The target group was those of children from Timis County. We examined 646 children with a mean age of 10.7 years (from 0 to 18 years). A cycloplegic refraction examination was performed on all the children, using a computerized Humphrey-Zeiss autorefractometer. The statistical analysis was performed using CDC's Epi Info 2002. în the analysis, we used the Odds Ratio, the exact Fisher test and the chi-squared test. Among the 646 children, 407--63% (CI95 = 59.1-66.7) had refraction errors, of which 1.5% (CI95 = 0.8-2.9) were myopic whereas 49.8% (CI95 = 45.9-53.8) were hyperopic. Astigmatism was found în 11.8% (CI95 = 9.4-14.6). The study showed higher prevalence for the 14-16 age, emphasizing the importance of these examinations.