Teacher's questionnaire for vision problems: is it a help or a hindrance for school health screening?

The importance of early detection of vision problems in children is widely accepted. Screening by nurses in the first year of school is important in such early detection. The feasibility of using a questionnaire for teachers in place of the traditional screen was examined. In addition, the effect of prior in-service training for teachers on the results of the questionnaire survey was assessed. The questionnaire had poor sensitivity and specificity. Used as the sole screen, it would have resulted in the unnecessary referral of healthy children, and more importantly, children with visual defects would have been missed. Further, there was no improvement in the outcome when prior in-service training on the questionnaire had been given. The questionnaire for teachers, as given, was an unsatisfactory alternative to the screening by health professionals and was not supported by this study.