Can India Go in for Pre- School / Pre- Verbal Eye Screening Now with Red Reflex? - A Feasibility Study

Aims: To study the feasibility and challenges for early vision screening of the 0-6 yr preverbal/ preschool children in both urban and rural settings of India using the simple Red Reflex test.

Study Design:Operational research.

Place and Duration of Study: Four settings (two urban and two rural) were designed to target the 0-6year old children. Model I .Pre School (Urban slum Population), Model II. Health Centre (Urban Hospital), Model III. Immunization OPD of Municipal Hospital (Rural hospital) Model IV. Anganwadi Centre (Rural Population) was designed and conducted July 2017 –Dec 2017 (6 months).

Methodology: All models were conducted as single day vision screening camps except Model III which was an opportunistic screening for a period of 3 months (July – Sept 2017). Vision screening was done using Red Reflex test and follow up was done for three months. Data was analyzed on MS Excel and expressed in proportions / percentages.

Results: Maximum children (155) were screened in Model I. Out of the 301 total children screened 33 (10.96%) had abnormal Red Reflex test. The yield was maximum 6 (17.14%) in Model III. Urban health centre Model I was the most time efficient model(average 0.74 minutes/child).

Conclusions: Single day screening of population based cohort is time efficient but opportunistic screening using universal immunization programme model had maximum yield.