Prevalence of refractive errors; an evidence from the public high schools of Lahore, Pakistan

To assess the magnitude of refractive errors among high school children.

The cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted from April to August 2017 in four public-sector high schools in Lahore, Pakistan. Using multistage simple random sampling, all public sector high schools of the city were initially included. Screening of refractive errors was managed on the school premises. Data was collected on a pre-tested, structured questionnaire. SPSS 23 was used for data analysis.

There were 1000 subjects with an overall mean age of 13.78±1.72 years (range: 10-18 years). Refractive errors were present in 244(24.4%) and myopia 127(52%) was the major type of refractive error followed by astigmatism 93(38.1%) and hypermetropia 24(9.8%). Differece in the prevalence of refractive errors in urban and rural settings was significant (p=0.00002).

Uncorrected refractive errors were present in a considerable segment of public-sector high school students of Lahore.