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Prevalence of Ocular Manifestations and Visual Impairment among Pre-employment Screening Candidates at a Tertiary Care Hospital, Tamil Nadu, India

Introduction: The importance of pre-employment check-ups cannot be understated. Every year visual impairment causes an enormous loss of productivity running in billions worldwide. One of the major reasons for this is lack of comprehensive data on national and international levels about the prevalence of visual impairment in the working sector. Aim: To assess the prevalence of ocular manifestations and visual impairment among the pre-employment screening candidates at a tertiary care hospital, Tamil Nadu, India. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional prospective study was conducted, from March 2022 to July 2022, at Trichy SRM Medical College Hospital and Research Centre, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, India. All the pre-employment candidates who attended the Ophthalmology Outpatient Department were included in the study. A comprehensive ophthalmic evaluation was done to all the pre-employment candidates. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 2.0 was was used for the data analysis. Results: A total of 530 candidates were screened during this period, which included 325 (61.3%) males and 205 (38.6%) females. The mean age was 33.75±11.52 years. The most common ocular manifestation was refractive errors in 50 (9.81%), senile cataract in 43 (8.11%), presbyopia in 32 (5.66%) and amblyopia in 20 (3.77%) patients. Conclusion: The overall prevalence of ocular manifestations and visual impairment among visual impairment was 43.39%. This helps in early detection of ocular morbidities among preemployment candidates and appropriate and timely intervention will improve the productivity of the candidate.