THE PREVALENCE OF STRABISMUS IN CHILDREN AT SCHOOL AGE IN SOHAG CITY

Document Type : Original articles: include clinical trials, interventional research, Basic researches and clinically relevant laboratory investigations

Authors

1 General Administration of Medical Affairs, Sohag Univ., Sohag, Egypt

2 Ophthalmology dept., Faculty of Medicine, Sohag Univ., Sohag, Egypt

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study is to determine the prevalence of different types of strabismus in
primary school children; grade one in Sohag city.
Background: Strabismus is the most common
amblyogenic factor. Children with untreated strabismus and/or amblyopia will lack the ability to fully
develop binocular single vision. They may have psychosocial difficulties later in life.
Design: A cross
sectional study was employed to determine the prevalence of strabismus among primary school
children (grade one) in Sohag city from November 2017 to April 2018.
Methods: Visual acuity,
autorefraction, Hirschberg's test and cover test using a pen light torch were performed for 584 out of 841
students (age range 5.5–7 years). Children with any type of strabismus or had a history of strabismus
surgery were subjected to a full ophthalmic examination including slit lamp, extraocular muscles
examination, Worth 4 dots test, and fundus examination.
Results: Students with strabismus are 8 of 584
students. Four of them are boys and the others are girls. Three of the detected cases are esotropias (two
boys and one girl) with a prevalence of 0.5%. The other five detected cases are distributed as three
cases of exophorias (two girls and one boy) with a prevalence of 0.5% and two cases of esophorias (one
girl and one boy) with a prevalence of 0.3%. In the present study, 506 students (255 males and 251
females) are emmetropic (< ± 1.00 D) with a percentage of 86.6% and the other 78 students (40 males
and 38 females) are with refractive errors with a percentage of 13.4%. Most of them are with astigmatism
(9.3%) then myopia (2.9%) and hypermetropia (1.2%).
Conclusion: In this study, the prevalence of
strabismus in children at school age in Sohag city is 1.4% with no statistically significant association with
gender.


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