Visual Acuity and its Relationship with Lifestyles among Students

The aim of the study is to assess visual acuity and its relationship with lifestyles among school children (10–16 years) at selected schools of District Faridkot, Punjab. A descriptive non experimental research design was used to conduct the present study. Convenient sampling technique was used to select 500 school children to assess visual acuity and lifestyles. Snellen chart was used to assess visual acuity and interview schedule with Likert scale was used to assess the lifestyles i.e. reading and writing habits, TV watching, Computer use, games, sleep, eye health practices and nutrition of school children. The findings revealed that out of 500 subjects, 92 (18.4%) study subjects had abnormal visual acuity i.e. <6/6 and 114 (22.8%) study subjects had poor lifestyle. A statistically significant relationship was found between visual acuity and lifestyle of subjects at p<0.05. Visual acuity was found to be associated with age, spectacle use among brothers/sisters of subjects, history of headache and eye discharge and ability to see and follow writing of class teacher on blackboard at p<0.05. Lifestyles was also found to be associated with age, history of headache and eye discharge and ability to see and follow writing of class teacher on blackboard at p<0.05. The study concluded that presence of abnormal visual acuity is quite more and visual acuity is also affected by lifestyles among school children.