Jornal de Oftalmologia Clínica e Experimental
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Prevalence of Near Visual Impairment and Associated Factors among School Teachers in Gondar City, North West Ethiopia, 2022

Bersufekad Wubie Alemie, Aragaw Kegne, Nebyat Feleke

Background: Near visual impairment is presenting near visual acuity of the eye worse than N6 at a 40 cm distance. Teachers’ regular duties such as reading books, writing on the blackboard, and recognizing students’ faces, need good near vision. If a teacher has near-visual impairment, the work output is unsatisfactory.

Purpose: The study was aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors near vision impairment among school teachers at Gondar city Northwest Ethiopia, August 2022.

Methods: To select 567 teachers in Gondar city schools, an institutional based cross-sectional study design with a multistage sampling technique were used. The study was conducted in selected schools from May 1 to May 30, 2022. Trained data collectors used well-structured Amharic and English language questionnaires and ophthalmic instruments for examination. The collected data were checked for completeness and entered into Epi data version 4.6, then exported to SPSS version 26 for further analysis. A binary and multivariate logistic regression model was fitted and associated factors of the outcome variable.

Results: The prevalence of near visual impairment was 64.6%, with a Confidence Interval (CI) of 60.3%-68.4%. Near visual impairment was significantly associated with age ≥ 35 years (Avascular Outer Retina (AOR): 4.90 at 95% CI: 3.15, 7.65), having prolonged years of teaching experience (AOR: 3.29 at 95% CI: 1.70, 4.62), having a history of ocular surgery (AOR: 1.96 at 95% CI: 1.10, 4.62), smokers (AOR: 2.21 at 95% CI: 1.22, 4.07), history of ocular trauma (AOR: 1.80 at 95% CI:1.11,3.18 and uncorrected refractive error (AOR:2.01 at 95%CI:1.13,4.03).

Conclusion: This study showed the prevalence of near vision impairment among school teachers was high, and it is not a problem of the presbyopia age group alone; it also happens at a young age. So teachers’ ocular health should be well accommodated in the school’s eye health.