Original Research Article *Corresponding Author: Naheed Akhtar, Assistant Professor, Institute of Ophthalmology, Pediatric Ophthalmologist JNMCH, AMU, Uttar Pradesh, India Email: nakhtar.io@amu.ac.in http://doi.org/10.18231/j.ijceo.2019.088 Indian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, July-September, 2019;5(3):370-372 370 Available online at www.iponlinejournal.com Journal homepage: www.innovativepublication.com/journal/ijceo Prevalence and pattern of ophthalmic morbidity in pediatric patients at a district early intervention centre of North India Naheed Akhtar 1* , Anam Khalid 2 , Uzma Firdaus 3 1,3 Assistant Professor, 2 Pediatric Optometrist, 1 Institute of Ophthalmology, Pediatric Ophthalmologist JNMCH, AMU, Uttar Pradesh, 2,3 DEIC JNMCH, AMU, Uttar Pradesh, India Abstract Objective: To find out prevalence and pattern of Ophthalmic morbidity in pediatric population in a district early intervention centre (DEIC) of North India. Study Design: A retrospective cross sectional study conducted in DEIC of JNMCH, AMU for a period of one year. Materials and Methods: Complete ophthalmological workup was done for 495 pediatric patients. Result: Prevalence of Ophthalmic morbidity was 49.09%. Peak prevalence (72.41%) was found in age gp. (9-12 Yrs). Refractive errors was the commonest morbidity (33.74%). Females had higher prevalence of morbidity than males. Conclusion: Refractive error was the commonest Ophthalmic morbidity. Early intervention in Pediatric population is utmost essential to prevent irreversible visual loss and amblyopia. Introduction A study of prevalence and profile of ophthalmic disorders in pediatric age-group is of utmost importance as early detection, and its management is the key to final visual acuity. Childhood blindness is the second largest cause of blind person-years following cataract. Globally approximately 70 million blind person-years are caused by childhood blindness. About 1.4 million blind children are there worldwide. 73% of whom live in developing countries. WHO’s vision 2020 – “The right to sight program” emphasizes on various measures to control childhood blindness as it adds to socio-economic burden to a nation. Many of ophthalmic morbidities if not detected and managed early lead to irreversible visual morbidity because of risk of amblyopia in childhood. This study conducted in a District Early Intervention Center aims at early detection of ocular problems in children as many of them are preventable like Vitamin A deficiency, treatable like congenital cataract and strabismus and even potentially irreversible like cortical blindness can have a reasonably good vision if intervened at an early stage. Materials and Methods A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in pediatric patients attending a District Early Intervention Centre (DEIC) of North India. A total of 495 patients, between 0 to 16 years, were included in the study. Data was collected between October 2017 to October 2018. Each patient had undergone complete ophthalmic workup, including visual acuity test by Lea paddles, Lea symbols, Cardiff acuity cards, E- charts, Snellen’s chart or logMAR visual acuity chart along with cycloplegic refraction. Hirschberg’s test, cover-uncover test, and prism bar cover test were done for strabismus evaluation. Each patient underwent torchlight and slit-lamp examination for the anterior segment and dilated posterior segment examination. All ophthalmic disorders were documented on standard proforma for management. We used Fischer's exact test for the calculation of prevalence. Observations Fig. 1: Prevalence of ophthalmic morbidity in total patients Article Info Received: 9 th June, 2019 Accepted: 22 nd July, 2019 Published Online: 9 th September, 2019 Keywords: Ophthalmic morbidity, Pediatric patients, Refractive error.