Prevalance of color blindness in children

Background: Many people are affected by color blindness but most of them remain undetected as they simply adapt to the environment to certain extent and some remain unaware of the disease. Objective: To find out the prevalence rate of color blindness in students of ages 6 years to 15 years, in various schools of Jalandhar. Methods: A prospective study was done on 3259 students to identify the prevalence of color blindness. Students were examined with Ishihara Pseudoisochromatic Color Plates 38 edition. If the student was color blind, then it was further classified into its types. The data collected was complied and analyzed to evaluate the prevalence of color blindness, gender wise prevalence and prevalence of types of color blindness. Results: Students of 12 schools were screened in the age group of 6 to 15 years. 3259 students were included in the study; 1683(40.44%) were males and 1584 (59.55%) females. Color blindness was seen in 61 students (1.89%) including 55 (1.69%) males and 6(0.184%) females. Among the color blind 56(91.8 %) were protanopes, 5(8.2 %) were deuteranopes and none were tritanope. Among the protanopes, 52(92.8%) were males and 4 (7.2%) were females and in deuteranopes, percentage of males affected was 4(66.7 %) and females was 2(33.3%). Conclusion: Color blindness affects males more than females in this study similar to previous studies done. Protonopia is more common than deutronopia. Early school screening for color vision defect is recommended.