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Abstract
Purpose: To describe and assess an orthoptist-led vision screening service for school-entry (reception class) children, and report outcomes from one healthcare trust in the UK.
Methods: A total of 3721 children (aged 4–5 years) in reception class primary school (155 state, 3 private) underwent orthoptist-conducted vision screening. Children who failed to meet the screening criteria were referred to hospital-based eye services for re-testing and final diagnosis.
Results: The screening take-up rate was 96.41%; the remaining 3.59% refused/failed to consent to screening. The screening capture rate of participating children was 99.7%. A total of 11.14% of screened children failed to meet the screening criteria and were referred elsewhere; no abnormalities were found in 14% (false referral rate) of these children. Of the referred children, 53% had refractive errors requiring glasses and 42% had squints. The estimated percentages of common visual problems in screened children were 9.15% for refractive error and 3.81% for squint.
Conclusion: An orthoptist-led, time-of-school-entry vision screening service is ideal for successful childhood vision screening and is, thus, a valuable source of information regarding the prevalence of common visual problems among children.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the orthoptists at Chesterfield Royal Hospital for their help in gathering data from the hospital notes.