jsmc-10204

THE PREVALENCE OF REFRACTIVE ERRORS OF PATIENTS ATTENDING SHAHID DR ASO EYE TEACHING HOSPITAL IN SULAIMANIA GOVERNORATE 

Tara Mahmood Hassan a

a Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. 

Submitted: 24/3/2019; Accepted: 27/6/2019; Published: 21/9/2019

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.17656/jsmc.10204 

ABSTRACT

Background 

Refractive error means that the shape of the eyes does not bend light correctly, resulting in a blurred image. The main types of refractive errors are myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism.

Objectives 

To determine the prevalence of refractive errors in patients that visited Shahid Dr Aso Eye Teaching Hospital in Sulaimania.

Methods

A descriptive cross-sectional study of patients examined at Shahid Aso Eye Teaching Hospital from Feb. to Oct. 2018. Subjects whom have considered had best corrected visual acuity by standardized subjective refraction of 6/12 or better. The refractive errors were classified by the spherical equivalent (SE): sphere+½ cylinder. Myopia were put in groups of as a SE more than−0.50 D, hyperopia as a SE more than+0.50 D, and emmetropia as a SE between −0.50 and +0.50, both included. Astigmatism equal or higher than 0.25 D in minus cylinder form was used. Exclusion criteria are patients with documented history of cataract extraction (pseudophakia or aphakia), amblyopia, refractive surgery or other corneal/ocular surgery. 

Results

A total of 355 randomly selected subjects of different age (10-80 year mean 33.90) were included. The estimated prevalence (95%, confidence interval) among all subjects were astigmatism (63.9%), myopia (18.8%), hyperopia (9.1%) and emmetropia (8.2%). The mean age of myopia was (27.12±15.7) year, hyperope was (50.8±7.5) year and astigmatism was (33.6±16.6) year. Compound myopic astigmatism was the most common type of astigmatism and against-the-rule astigmatism increasing with age.

Conclusions

Astigmatism is the most common refractive error in all age group and compound myopic astigmatism constitutes about half of it. Further programs and studies must be developed to address the refractive errors needs of the population in Sulaimania.

KEYWORDS

Refractive error, Spherical Equivalent and Aging.

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