Uncorrected refractive error and presbyopia among junior high school teachers in Jakarta, Indonesia

Purpose: To report on the frequency of observed refractive and accommodative errors among junior high school teachers in Jakarta, Indonesia, who participated in a Helen Keller International screening, refraction and spectacle distribution program. Methods: A total of 965 teachers from 19 schools were eligible for screening; those with uncorrected distance visual acuity (VA) 6/12-3 and teachers 35 years old with uncorrected end-point print size >Jaeger (J) 6 were referred. Autorefraction and subjective refraction were performed for teachers with confirmed decreased VA. Refractive error was considered present if sphere -0.75 diopters (D), sphere +0.25D or cylinder -0.50D resulted in 2 lines of improvement in VA. Presbyopia was considered present if an end-point print size >J6 improved by 1 optotype with the use of a lens +1.00D. Results: Overall, 866 teachers were screened (89.7% of those eligible) with complete screening data available for 858 (99.0%), among whom 762 failed screening. Distance refraction data were available for 666 of 762 (87.4%) and near refraction data for 520 of 686 (75.8%) teachers who failed screening. Of those screened, 76.2±9.0% of teachers had refractive and/or accommodative error and 57.1±7.6% had uncorrected refractive and/or accommodative error. Overall and uncorrected distance refractive error affected 44.2±3.7% and 36.0±3.6%, respectively; overall and uncorrected presbyopia affected 66.4±8.1% and 41.0±6.6%, respectively. Conclusion: As defined in this program, refractive and accommodative errors were common among teachers in Jakarta.