Assessment of visual acuity amongst school‑aged students in Southern Cross River State, Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Visual impairment is a major public health concern worldwide, with uncorrected refractive errors as a major cause of visual impairment in children. Most of the causes of this visual impairments can be prevented or easily corrected.

AIM AND OBJECTIVES: This study seeks to determine the prevalence of visual impairment and factors responsible for visual acuity screening amongst school‑aged children in Southern Cross River State, Nigeria.

METHODOLOGY: This was a cross‑sectional descriptive designed study using a multistage sampling technique, with a self‑administered questionnaire to obtain quantitative data from school‑aged children in secondary schools in Calabar Municipality, Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State in South‑South Nigeria.

RESULTS: The mean age of respondents was 13.9 ± 2 years. The prevalence of visual impairment amongst students was 5.7%. Although majority of the respondents (73.9%) were aware of visual acuity screening test, only 33.9% of the respondents had ever had a visual acuity test done. A statistically significant association was found (P < 0.05) between those students who were aware of eye screening test, had their vision deteriorate or have their academic performance affected by their vision and the practice of performing an eye screening test.

CONCLUSION: Awareness of visual acuity screening did not translate into practice, so it is necessary for visual acuity screening test to be made mandatory for all school‑aged children to help detect visual impairment early.

背景：视觉障碍（visual impairment）是全球范围内的重大公共卫生问题，未矫正的屈光不正（uncorrected refractive errors）是儿童视觉障碍的主要诱因。此类视觉障碍的多数病因可被预防或轻松矫正。

研究目的与目标：本研究旨在确定尼日利亚南部克罗斯河州学龄儿童的视觉障碍患病率，以及影响视力筛查（visual acuity screening）的相关因素。

研究方法：本研究为横断面描述性研究，采用多阶段抽样技术，通过自填式问卷（self-administered questionnaire）收集尼日利亚南南地区克罗斯河州南部参议员选区卡拉巴尔市中学的学龄儿童的定量数据。

研究结果：受访者的平均年龄为13.9 ± 2岁。学生群体的视觉障碍患病率为5.7%。尽管多数受访者（73.9%）知晓视力筛查测试，但仅33.9%的受访者曾接受过视力检测。研究发现，知晓眼部筛查测试、自述视力下降或因视力问题影响学业表现的学生，与进行眼部筛查的行为之间存在统计学显著性关联（P < 0.05）。

研究结论：对视力筛查的知晓率并未转化为实际筛查行为，因此有必要将视力筛查测试强制纳入所有学龄儿童的常规体检，以助力早期发现视觉障碍。