the prevalence of asthenopia and its determinants among schoolchildren

Objectives: the current study aimed at determining asthenopia prevalence and its associated factors in a population of high school students. methods: in the current cross sectional study, samples were selected from high school students (range, 12 to 18 years) in kermanshah city, iran, through stratified cluster sampling. any person with at least 1 symptom was considered to have asthenopia. results: of the 1070 selected samples, 1040 participated, and examinations were completed for 901 students. the prevalence of asthenopia was 49.4% (45.7 to 53.2). the prevalence of asthenopia was 62.8% (51.9 to 73.8) and 47.7% (43.8 to 51.7) in males and females, respectively (p = 0.013). asthenopia prevalence increased from 21.4% in 12-year-old to 63.9% in 18-year-old cases (p < 0.001). the most common symptom in the study was tearing (20.03%) and eye pain (19.88%) during near-work and reading. conclusions: the prevalence of asthenopia in this student population was high. since asthenopia can interfere with near-work, its treatment merits high importance in school-age children.