الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Introduction:Vision is very essential for a child’s development during infancy and early childhood, also later on for learning and communications. Mostly three-fourth of a child’s early learning is acquired through vision. So, visual impairment in early life has a major negative effect on children’s growth and development leading to delaying in crawling and walking. Many ocular morbidities start in childhood and if undetected could result in severe ocular disabilities, in addition to affecting development, social educational performance, and employment opportunities. Ocular morbidities include conjunctivitis, refractive errors, ocular trauma, vitamin A deficiency, trachoma, blephritis, stye, pterygium and color blindness. The majority of blindness is either preventable or curable.Aim of the study:The aim of work is to assess the magnitude of ocular morbidity among children attending to Mansoura Ophthalmic Center during a calendar year, and detect the most common causes of ocular morbidity found among them.Patients and methods:A cross-sectional study was carried out on a representative sample of 1400 children attending Mansoura University Ophthalmic Center through the period from the first of July 2016 to the end of June 2017. The children were interviewed to fill a structured questionnaire, clinical examinations and some laboratory investigations. Results:The present study revealed that the leading causes of ocular morbidity were squint, chalazion, traumatic cataract, error of refraction and conjunctivitis respectively. Conclusion:The present study revealed that the leading causes of ocular morbidity in our study were squint, chalazion, traumatic cataract, error of refraction and conjunctivitis respectively. These morbidities were: 1) Preventable (e.g., trauma, conjunctivitis) through proper eye health education to the community. 2) Treatable medically and/or surgically (e.g., squint, error of refraction) to prevent visual impairment and blindness. |