Eligibility for the use of ready-made spectacles among children in a school-based programme in Ghana

Abstract

Ready-made spectacles are low-cost spectacles for correcting refractive errors in children who would otherwise have their refractive errors uncorrected due to lack of availability and affordability of conventional, expensive custom-made spectacles. Thus, this study seeks to estimate the proportion of children with uncorrected refractive errors eligible for ready-made spectacles in a school-based programme. A school-based descriptive cross-sectional study was employed to screen children aged 12–15 years in eighteen public junior high schools within the Bongo district of Ghana. Children who failed the 6/9 acuity test were refracted and given spectacles. Ready-made spectacle was prescribed when visual acuity improved by ≥2 lines in at least one eye with full correction (astigmatism of ≤0.75D); spherical equivalent corrected visual acuity to ≤1 line worse than best corrected visual acuity with full correction in the better eye; and there was ≤1.00D difference between the two eyes. A total of 1,705 school children were examined. Of this number, 30 (1.8%; 95% CI: 1.2–2.5%) met the criteria for refractive correction but none had any. Twenty-six (86.7%; 95% CI: 69.7–95.3%) were found to be eligible for ready-made spectacles (power range: -1.50D to +1.00D, mean spherical equivalent ± SD = -0.27D ± 0.79D) while 4 (13.3%; 95% CI: 4.7–30.3%) were not, hence, given custom-made spectacles. A binary logistic regression analysis revealed that the odds of being eligible for one type of spectacles was similar between males and females (OR: 1.1; 95% CI: 0.1–12.7; p = 0.93). A large proportion of students who met the criteria for spectacle correction could be corrected with ready-made spectacles. There is, therefore, the need for these spectacles to be considered an appropriate alternative for refractive error correction during school eye health programmes.

Compliance with spectacle wear among learners with hearing impairment in Ghana

“…Furthermore, the types of spectacles, such as ready made and custom made, used in the studies may have contributed to the variations in compliance levels. Although both types of spectacles have proven to provide good visual outcomes (Asare & Morjaria 2022 ; Morjaria et al 2017 ; Pearce 2014 ), their compliance levels have also been generally low among school learners (Pearce 2014 ). Comparison between the compliance level among the two types of spectacles could not be ascertained by this study because of the significant difference in the number of dispensed custom-made spectacles compared to pop-in spectacles.…”