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Abstract

The prevalence of visual impairments in hearing-impaired and deaf persons has been approved. However, the type and prevalence of these disabilities vary in various regions of the world. Thus, the present study investigates the prevalence of amblyopia and strabismus in Kermanshah elementary and secondary school students. The present study is cross-sectional-applied in type. The study population included hearing-impaired and deaf elementary and secondary school persons in Kermanshah in the 2019-2020 academic year. The sample size included hearing-impaired and deaf elementary and secondary school students selected using non-probabilistic and convenience sampling methods. In total, 79 hearing-impaired and deaf students and 84 healthy male persons were studied in this study. Data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software. α = 0.05 was considered to test the hypotheses.

A remarkable difference was reported between the amblyopia rate in the hearing-impaired and healthy groups using the chi-square test. A remarkable difference was not reported between the rate of low vision in the hearing-impaired and healthy groups by Fisher's exact test. A remarkable difference was not reported between the level of deafness and strabismus by Fisher's exact test. The frequency of strabismus, amblyopia, and low vision is significantly more occur among hearing-impaired and deaf persons than among normal children. Since hearing-impaired and deaf children are unable to express and state their eye problems and have difficulty expressing their visual impairments, they need a good sense of vision to compensate for their poor sense of hearing‎.

Keywords: Amblyopia, Strabismus, Deaf students, Hearing-impaired students, Kermanshah City