Refractive status of primary school children in Mopani district, Limpopo Province, South Africa

This article reports part of the findings of a study carried out to determine the causes, prevalence, and distribution of ocular disorders among rural primary school children in Mopani district of Limpopo Province, South Africa. Three hundred and eighty eight children aged 8 to 15 years were randomly selected from five randomly selected schools. Non-cycloplegic retinoscopy and auto-refraction were performed on each child. The prevalence of hyperopia, myopia, and astigmatism was 73.1%, 2.5% and 31.3% respectively. Hyperopia (Nearest spherical equivalent power (F-NSE) ranged from +0.75 to +3.50 D for the right and left eyes with means of +1.05 +/- 0.35 D and +1.08 +/- 0.34 D respectively. Myopia (F-NSE) ranged from -0.50 to -1.75 D for the right eye and -0.50 to -2.25 D for the left eye with means of -0.75 +/- 0.55 D and -0.93 +/- 0.55 D respectively. Regression model for myopia, shows that age had an odds ratio of 1.94 (1.15 to 3.26), indicating a significant increased risk of myopia with increasing age. Correcting cylinders for the right eyes ranged from -0.25 to -4.50 D (mean = -0.67 +/- 0.47 D) and for the left eyes from -0.25 to -2.50 D (mean = -0.60 +/- 0.30 D). With-the-rule (WTR) astigmatism (66.5%) was more common, followed by against-the-rule (ATR) astigmatism (28.1%) and oblique (OBL) astigmatism (5.4%). With-the-rule astigmatism was more common in females than males; ATR astigmatism and OBL astigmatism were common in males. Regular vision screening programmes, appropriate referral and vision correction in primary schools in Mopani district are recommended in order to eliminate refractive errors among the children.