The study of anisometropia and its association with amblyopia in school going children

Abstract

To determine the prevalence and type of anisometropia among school going children and to study association of degree of anisometropia with severity of amblyopia. A hospital based cross-sectional study carried on 500 school going children up to 10th grade (Age group:- 5 years to 16 years) selected by non-probability convenient sampling according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The clinical profile of these children was evaluated in department of ophthalmology, P.D.U Govt. medical college, Rajkot and they underwent detail visual assessment and ophthalmic examinations including measurement of uncorrected visual acuity, best corrected visual acuity, auto-refraction, retinoscopy, subjective correction and detailed squint evaluation, if present. During period of November 2019 to February 2021 during school health programme. Total of 500 school going children were enrolled in the study, out of which 221(44.2%) were females and 279 (55.8%) were males. The prevalence of anisometropia in our study was 23.8% (119 childrens out of 500 childrens). Out of total 119 childrens, 47 were males (39.5%) and 72 were females (60.5%). Maximum patients with anisometropia (n=54 out of 119 patients) were having compound hypermetropia. Prevalance of anisometropia increased as the age increased, till age of 14 years, and then again there occurs a declining trend. X2 = 10.139, p value = 0.051 and it was statistically significant. In our study, prevalence of amblyopia was 8.8% (n=44 out of 500 patients) and among amblyopic patients, 59% patients (n=26 out of 44 patients) had amblyopia due to anisometropia. Out of 26 patients with amblyopia due to anisometropia, 73.1% patients (n= 19 out of 26 patients) were anisohypermetropic and 26.9% patients (n= 7 out of 26 patients) were anisomyopic. In our study, depth and prevalence of amblyopia increased as the degree of anisometropia increased and it was found to be statistically significant(p=0.045).Our study concludes that the prevalence of anisometropia was high (59%) among the amblyopic patients with maximum patients having compound hypermetropic anisometropia. Depth and prevalence of amblyopia increased as the degree of anisometropia increased.