Abstract:

Objectives: Refractive errors are among the most common disorders among children. Vision loss related with uncorrected refractive errors may lead to decrease in educational atttainment and other social problems, and also, when unilateral, causes serious diseases such as amblyopia (lazy eye). The purpose of our study is to determine the frequency of refractive disorders and amblyopia among elementary school children admitted to a general outpatient ophthalmology clinic. Materials and Methods: Medical records of a total of 409 patients aged 7-10 attending a general outpatient ophthalmology clinic between January and December 2014 were screened retrospectively and 246 subjects with complaints of visual impairment or diagnosed with refractive disorders were included. Results: Among the 246 subjects included in the study, 119 (4840%) were girls and 127 (51.60%) were boys. The average age of girls was 8.71±1.18 and it was 8.47±1.13 for boys. Sixty-two (25.20%) of 246 subjects had emmetropia. When 184 (74.80%) subjects with refractive disorders were considered, 88 (47.80%) had myopia, 50 (27.20%) had hypermetropia, and 46 (25%) had astigmatism. Amblyopia was present in 27 (14.70%) subjects. There was no statistically significant difference between girls and boys with regard to the frequency of amblyopia (p=0.84). When all the children aged 7-10 years admitting to the ophthalmology clinic in the year 2014 were evaluated, refractive disorders were present in 45% and amblyopia was present in 6.60% of the subjects. Conclusion: Refractive disorders constitute a substantial part of the ophthalmology outpatient clinical admissions of elementary school children. Besides problems such as a decrease in school success and an increase in home or sports injuries, differently from adults, uncorrected refractive disorders in the childhood period may lead to amblyopia.   Amblyopia, which may result in permanent visual loss when not corrected timely and properly, is an important health concern with lifelong influences.

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