Chineye Vivian NWANKWO

Refractive errors, including myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism, constitute a significant public health concern affecting visual well-being of individuals as well as the academic performance of pupils. Uncorrected refractive error, the second most common cause of preventable blindness globally places a heavy burden on individuals and the society. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of refractive errors among secondary school students in Egor Local Government Area (LGA). The study was carried out for a period of three month. A stratified random sampling method was used where students from the selected schools within Egor LGA were selected for the study. The sample size was 400 with a number of 151 females and 249 males. Data was collected using a well structured self-administered questionnaires. This questionnaire included demographic information and was further divided into three sections. The data collected were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation) was used to
summarize the variables. Continuous variables was expressed as the mean ± standard deviation for those that displayed normal distribution. A total of 400 students participated in the study between the ages of 11 to 19years (mean age 16.07± 1.320). Majority of the participants was male (249) while the remaining where females (151). The results showed that those who had good knowledge about refractive errors was about 52.3% while those who had good attitudes to refractive errors was 44% and who with good practice of refractive errors was just 17.5% of the
respondents. In conclusion, the knowledge about refractive error was fair, attitude towards refractive error was good but the practices towards refractive error was poor.