Name

Les affections oculaires chez les enfants à Kinshasa

Purpose: To determine the common eye disorders in patients less than 17 years of age (paediatric patients), attending outpatient in an eye clinic in Kinshasa.

We performed a retrospective cross-sectional and descriptive analysis of the data collected between January 2005 and August 2016 from patients less than 17 years of age, examined in an outpatient eye clinic, a general ophthalmology practice. Patients were grouped according to their age group preschool (0–5 years), school age (6–10 years) or older children (11–16 years). All children had a full ophthalmic evaluation, including refraction/cyclorefraction, slit lamp examination, an assessment of intraocular pressure (IOP), ocular motility and  ophthalmoscopy.

 Out of 17469 patients seen during the study period, 2360 (13.5%) were less than 17 years of age. The mean age (SD) of the patients  was 9.65 (4.41) years (range, 0.02 to 16 years). There were 1260 (53.4%) female and 1100  (46.6%) male, with a male to female ratio of 1:1.15. Of 2360, 517 (21.9%) children had no eye disorders. Of 1843 patients with eye disorders, refractive errors were the most common encountered disorders seen in 722 (39.2%) patients, which were followed by conjunctivitis (528 patients, 28.6%).

This study confirms the findings reported in developing countries concerning eye disorders in paediatric patients.

From the results of the study, refractive errors and conjunctivitis were the two most common disorders of childhood ocular diseases; therefore, the results justify a school eye screening programme.