Saifullah, Arif Khan.
Assessment of Congenital Color Vision Deficiency Amongst High School Children Age Group 12 to 16 Years.
Ophthalmol Update Jan ;13(3):172-7.

Objective: Human color vision is normally trichromatic in the sense that a suitable mixture of red, green and blue lights which can match any color that we can see. Color blindness occurs when one or more of the cone types are absent, or present but defective. It is a common X-linked genetic disorder. However, most of color blinds remain undetected due to absence of proper screening. To determine the prevalence of congenital color vision deficiency and identify the level of awareness about their color vision defect among high school students aged 12 to 16 years in Union Council MC4 District Charsadda, KPK. Design: This was basically a cross sectional descriptive study. Setting: The study was conducted in high schools of union council MC4 district Charsadda from 4th October 2014 to 17th January 2015. Materials and Methods: A total of 1055 high school students in the selected age group were screened for congenital color vision defect using Ishihara?s pseudo-isochromatic test 38 plate edition. The socio-demographic data and results of color vision test and ocular examination collected using pre-tested structured questionnaire. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS statistical package version 15.0. Results: A total of 1055 high school children were screened with a mean age of 14 ± 2.0 years which includes 530 male and 525 female. Among these 46 cases (4.36%) (95% confidence interval 2.98 to 5.42) were color blind. Of these 32 cases (69.50%) involved deutan, 09 cases (19.50%) protan, 05 cases (11%) unclassified. Among males the prevalence of color vision deficiency was 42 cases (7.92%) and females 04 cases (0.76%). All of the color blind subjects were not aware of their status of color vision. Conclusion: The prevalence of congenital color vision deficiency in this study was significantly higher than the estimated prevalence for Asian population. Deutan was the most common defect. Early school screening for color vision defect is recommended.

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