Frequency of conjunctivitis among farmers of district vehari, Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Conjunctivitis is very common type of ocular problem occurring worldwide due to many type of microorganism and if not managed appropriately and timely can lead to corneal perforation or blindness Objective: To find out the frequency of conjunctivitis among farmers in District Vehari.­   Method: It was community based, cross sectional descriptive study, quantitative method was applied. The villages were selected randomly and subjects were communicated by door to door approach and examined personally with the help of ophthalmoscope and torch light. Result: A Total 200 Farmers were examined during the study period in which 33 (16.5%) Farmers were found to have conjunctivitis. Among these 29 (14.5%) patients had bacterial and 4 patients (2%) had viral conjunctivitis. And no patient was found to had allergic conjunctivitis. Conclusion: Protective measures are very important to protect eyes from any sort of pathogens and in this study maximum population were not using any protective measures while doing almost 6 hours outdoor work. Literacy rate was very poor because maximum number of patients were not getting treatment from qualified eye specialist instead of having bacterial conjunctivitis.