Prevalence of Refractive Errors and Amblyopia among Primary School Children in Eligible Arab Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Diagnostic Approaches

Doi: 10.36351/pjo.v42i3.2268

Abstract

A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted according to PRISMA guidelines. PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Embase, and Google Scholar were searched for studies published from 2016 to 2023. The search was intended to cover Arab countries; however, eligible school-based data were identified from only 10 countries. Studies including children aged 5–19 years and reporting myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, or amblyopia were included. Data from 30 studies were analyzed. Random-effects models were used, and heterogeneity was assessed using I². The sample ranged from 276 to 444,259 children and a combined sample size of 491,985. The reported prevalence of overall refractive errors, including myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, and amblyopia, ranged from 8.2% to 50.0%. The pooled prevalence was 6.7% for hyperopia, 8.4% for astigmatism, and 2.2% for amblyopia. Myopia ranged from 1.7% to 25.0% but was not pooled because of substantial heterogeneity in diagnostic methods, age groups, study settings, and refractive cut-off definitions.