A cross-sectional study on ocular disorders among school children in urban field practice area of a tertiary healthcare centre, Telangana

Background: Childhood blindness is always a priority area to concentrate because interventions at this stage can help to reduce the number of years the child has to live blind. As children in the school-going age group (6-16 years) represent 25% of the population in the developing countries. This study aims to study the ocular disorders among school going children in urban field practice area of Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, Telangana. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted during June 2022 to May 2023 among 625 children aged 6-15 years attending government and government aided schools in urban field practice area of Osmania Medical College. List of all government and government aided schools in the urban field practice area was made with the help of UHC staff, and six schools out of the total twelve schools were selected by simple random sampling technique and all the students from the randomly selected schools present on the day of examination were included in the study. Results: Among the total 625 students included in the study 157 (25.12%) had ocular disorders. Most common ocular morbidity was refractive errors 70 (44.59%), vitamin A deficiency 22 (14.01%), blepharitis 20 (12.74%), stye 17 (10.83%), squint 10 (6.37%), conjunctivitis 8 (5.1%), colour blindness 3 (1.9%), ocular injuries 3 (1.91%), cataract 2 (1.27%), and ptosis 2 (1.27%). Conclusions: As the prevalence of ocular disorders among school going children is 25.12% screening of school children for ocular problems should be done at regular intervals and it should be one of the main components of the School Health Programme.