Background: Uncorrected Refractive Error is one of the leading cause amblyopia that exposes children to poor\nschool performance. It refrain them from productive working lives resulting in severe economic and social loses in\ntheir latter adulthood lives. The objective of the study was to assess the prevalence of uncorrected refractive error\nand its associated factors among school children in Debre Markos District.\nMethod: A cross section study design was employed. Four hundred thirty two students were randomly selected\nusing a multistage stratified sampling technique. The data were collected by trained ophthalmic nurses through\ninterview, structured questionnaires and physical examinations. Snellens visual acuity measurement chart was used\nto identify the visual acuity of students. Students with visual acuity less than 6/12 had undergone further\nexamination using auto refractor and cross-checked using spherical and cylindrical lenses. The data were entered\ninto epi data statistical software version 3.1 and analyzed by SPSS version 20. The statistical significance was set at\n? ? 0.05. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analyses were done using odds ratios with 95% confidence interval.\nResult: Out of 432 students selected for the study, 420 (97.2%) were in the age group 7ââ?¬â??15 years. The mean age\nwas 12 Ã?± 2.1SD. Overall prevalence of refractive error was 43 (10.2%). Myopia was found among the most dominant\n5.47% followed by astigmatism 1.9% and hyperopia 1.4% in both sexes. Female sex (AOR: 3.96, 95% CI: 1.55-10.09),\nhigher grade level (AOR: 4.82, 95% CI: 1.98-11.47) and using computers regularly (AOR: 4.53, 95% CI: 1.58-12.96) were\nsignificantly associated with refractive error.\nConclusion: The burden of uncorrected refractive errors is high among primary schools children. Myopia was\ncommon in both sexes. The potential risk factors were sex, regular use of computers and higher grade level of\nstudents. Hence, school health programs should work on health information dissemination and eye health care\nservices provision.
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