C H Seethal¹, S S A Karim²
¹University of Durban Westville, Optometry, Durban, South Africa; ²University of Natal, Research and Development, Durban, South Africa
The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a Teacher Vision Awareness Programme (TVAP), which trained teachers to detect vision problems in preschool children.
Methods: A cluster randomized control trial was conducted. Each of 32 preschool teachers together with the children in their care served as the cluster unit randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups. The intervention consisted of a specifically developed 4hour workshop on the detection of vision problems in young children. The control group participated in a 4hour workshop on child abuse. The 16 teachers from each group then observed children in their classes for vision problems and prepared a list of their assessments on each child's vision status. Two months later, a team of optometrists screened the children of each teacher's group using the Enhanced Modified Clinical Technique for comparison to assess the accuracy of the teacher's observation on the vision status of each child.
Results: Of the 650 children, 18.9% presented with a vision problem. Intervention group teachers were substantially better at identifying children with vision defects; 66.1% (37 / 56) of the intervention group children with vision problems had been correctly identified by their teachers compared to 1.5% (1 / 66) of the control group children with vision problems (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: Preschool teachers participating in the TVAP, were effective in identifying children with vision problems. This newly developed vision-screening programme has the potential benefit of reducing the number of undetected and untreated children with vision problems.
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