Refractive and binocular vision status of optometry students, Ghana

To investigate the refractive and non-strabismic binocular vision status of Optometry students in University of Cape Coast, Ghana and to establish any associations between these conditions. A cross sectional study of 105 Optometry students were taken through a comprehensive optometric examination to investigate the refractive and non-strabismic binocular vision status. Fisher’s exact test (IBM SPSS version 21) was used to assess association between these conditions. Prevalence of refractive error and non-strabismic binocular vision dysfunctions were 59.0% and 34.3% respectively. Prevalence of specific refractive errors were 17.1% myopia, 19.0% hyperopia and 22.9% astigmatism. Non-strabismic accommodative and vergence dysfunctions were found to be 21.9% and 12.4% respectively. Specific types of accommodative and vergence disorders were as follows: accommodative fatigue (8.6%), accommodative infacility (6.7%), accommodative insufficiency (4.7%) and accommodative excess (1.9%), convergence insufficiency (1.9%), convergence excess (1.0%), divergence insufficiency (2.9%), basic exophoria (1.9%), and basic esophoria (4.7%). There was a significant association between refractive errors in general and accommodative fatigue (p = 0.030) and between myopia and accommodative excess (p= 0.028). It is critical that potential primary eye care practitioners become aware of their refractive and non-strabismic binocular vision status.Journal of Medical and Biomedical Sciences (2016) 5(2), 24-29