Prevalence of amblyopia and its impact on the academic performance of male medical students in Southern Saudi Arabia

PURPOSE: To estimate the prevalence of amblyopia among medical students in Saudi Arabia, and investigate the impact of amblyopia on their Academic performance. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study which targeted 478 of male medical students from the College of Medicine at King Khalid University. A questionnaire was used to investigate the demographics of participants. Distance visual acuity was assessed monocularly using tumbling “E” chart in all participants. Then detailed ophthalmic evaluation was performed for any student with two or more lines difference between the two eyes or visual acuity of ≤20/40 in either eye. RESULTS: A sample of 478 male medical students, of whom 12(2.5%) were found to have amblyopia. Anisometropic amblyopia was the most common type (10/12, 83.3%) followed by strabismic amblyopia (2/12, 16.7%). There is a significant relation between past ocular history and amblyopia (p-value = 0.008). Up to 25% of amblyopic students not diagnosed before and 25% of them agree that amblyopia affects their social & psychiatric status. There was no effect of amblyopia on the academic performance (P-value = 0.5). CONCLUSION: Amblyopia was found in 2.5% of male medical students. Amblyopia had a moderate effect on the students' lives, but it did not affect their academic performance.