Ametropia in children with headache

Abstract

Objective: To measure the frequency of uncorrected ametropia in children with 2 to 8 weeks of persistent headache referred to ophthalmic outpatient department for evaluation.

Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted at CMH Gujranwala from March 2018 to November 2018.A total of 262 children, aged from 5 to 16 years, with 2 to 8 weeks history of persistent headache underwent detailed ophthalmic assessment for refractive errors, and other ophthalmic evaluation. Children with ametropia, confirmed with cycloplegic refraction and post-mydriatic testing were prescribed with glasses. Patients without any ophthalmic findings were referred back to pediatrics department for further evaluation.

Results: Mean age of study population was 8.97 ± 3.16 years. Mean duration of headache was 5.03 ± 1.81 weeks. Ametropia was found in 56 (21.4%) children, while 206 (78.6%) had no refractive error. Out of children with ametropia, 20 (35.7%) had myopia, 24 (42.8%) had astigmatism and 12 (21.5%) had hypermetropia. There was no difference in ametropic children and children without ametropia with respect to gender (p=0.73), age (p=0.54) and duration of headache (p=0.71).

Conclusion: A significant proportion of children with ametropia have initial symptoms of headache. Any child with un-explained headache must undergo ophthalmic evaluation to diagnose refractive error, if any.

doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.3.268

How to cite this:
Mehboob MA, Nisar H, Khan M. Ametropia in children with headache. Pak J Med Sci. 2019;35(3):701-704.
doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.35.3.268

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.