Refractive status among the students presenting to Geta Eye Hospital, Kailali, Nepal

A retrospective hospital based study was designed in order to evaluate the refractive status of students presenting to Geta Eye Hospital. All the hospital record of secondary level school students were collected from the record unit of the hospital. Children below 5 years of age and those with incomplete record were excluded from the study. All students who visited Geta Eye hospital during May 1 to July 30, 2007 AD were included in the study. Out of 328 students presenting to Geta Eye Hospital, presenting visual acuity was normal (6/6) in 67.4% students, while 32.6% had reduced presenting visual acuity. Altogether 7.0% students had presenting visual acuity worse than 6/18 in the better eye and 2.4% improved to better than 6/18 with correction. Significant refractive error (>0.50 D Spherical Equivalent) was found in total of 32.0% students. Myopia was present in 11.89% students, whereas Astigmatism and hypermetropia were present in 11.3% and 8.8% of the total students respectively. Out of total students, 95.4% students were found to have best corrected visual acuity of 6/6-6/18 in the better eye. There were 4.0% students in MVI category and 0.6% in SVI category after correction. Altogether 7.6% cases of amblyopia were found. Hyperopia was most commonly associated with amblyopia. Associated ocular morbidity in either eye was assessed and was found in 25.0% students. 6.4% cases had convergence insufficiency. About one third of the students presenting to hospital had significant refractive error. Thus, School can be our peripheral referral unit if we could train teachers to detect abnormal vision.