Refractive errors in children attending ophthalmology clinic of a teaching institute in South India

To assess the prevalence of various refractive errors in children attending ophthalmology out patient department of a tertiary hospital. 173 children with defective vision were assessed for refractive errors during June 2021- June 2022. Females accounted for the majority of children (61.6%). Most common type of refractive error was myopia (52%) followed by hyperopia (27.2%) and the least common was astigmatism(20.8%). Myopic astigmatism was the most common variety in cases of astigmatic cases(72.2%). The frequency of myopia increased with increasing age of children. This association was found to be statistically significant (p<0.01%). Mean refractive error was -1.047D. The SD was -2.57D. Low myopia was the most common (38.1%) with females being the majority of these cases (24.2%). Myopia had highest parental association among refractive errors (57.4%). Refractive errors when uncorrected can lead to amblyopia and strabismus and hence school based and community based screening is necessary to get a real estimate of the burden of uncorrected refractive errors.