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Visual impairment in children: prevalence, aetiology and care, 1976–85
Author(s) -
Arnaud Catherine,
Baille MarieFlorence,
Grandjean Hélène,
Cans Christine,
Du Mazaubrun Christiane,
RumeauRouquette Claude
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.667
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3016
pISSN - 0269-5022
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-3016.1998.00106.x
Subject(s) - medicine , visual impairment , pediatrics , etiology , blindness , visual acuity , childhood blindness , pregnancy , retinopathy of prematurity , optometry , gestational age , psychiatry , ophthalmology , genetics , biology
Visual impairment (corrected visual acuity in the best eye < 0.3) was evaluated in a retrospective study of 296 children born between 1976 and 1985 and recruited from three French departments. For children younger than 9 years, the overall prevalence was 0.80 per 1000 and that of blindness was 0.28 per 1000. No decrease in prevalence was noted over this decade. The most common aetiologies were antenatal factors (48%), which were observed mainly in the cases of poor vision, and perinatal factors (27%), which were more common in the cases of blindness. Fifty‐six per cent of the children had an additional severe handicap. The most common association was with motor impairment and mental retardation. The mean age of first medical care (3.1 years) did not change over the decade: 2.0 years for children with an associated handicap, 2.9 years for cases of isolated blindness and 5.1 years for cases of isolated poor vision. Among children with isolated visual impairment, there was a significantly higher percentage of scholastic underachievers in those presenting after the age of 5 years (39.3% vs. 14.6%).