Effect of Structured Teaching Programme on Knowledge of Primary School Teachers Regarding Early Identification and Management of Refractive Errors among School Children

Our eye is a sensitive and highly specialized sense organ subjected to various disorders, many of which lead to impaired vision. Children are more at risk of developing refractive errors, because they are actively growing and subjected to the strain of near work due to demanding academic schedules. The global prevalence of refractive errors has been estimated from 800 million to 2.3 billion. The World Health Organization estimates that 13 million children aged 5–15 years worldwide are visually impaired from uncorrected refractive error. Therefore the knowledge regarding the refractive errors among school teachers is very much important to detect any manifestations of refractive errors in school children.

Quasi-experimental Pre-test Post test control group design.

Non probability convenience sampling technique was adopted to select 30 primary school teachers, each in experimental and control group.

Structured knowledge questionnaire regarding early identification and management of refractive errors.

The results of the study revealed that the significance of difference between the mean pre test and mean post test knowledge scores which was statistically tested using paired ‘t’ test was found to be significant at 0.05 level of significance (t (₂₉)= 42.941; p<0.05) and the significance of difference between the mean post test knowledge scores between experimental and control group which was statistically tested using independent ‘t’ test was found to be significant at 0.05 level of significance (t(₅₈)= 40.126; p<0.05). The results also depicted that knowledge of primary school teachers regarding early identification and management of refractive errors had no association with their selected personal variables.

Therefore, the study concluded that structured teaching programme was effective in increasing the knowledge of primary school teachers regarding early identification and management of refractive errors among school children.