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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1468285

AVAILABILITY OF EYE HEALTH INTERVENTIONS IN BASIC SCHOOLS IN A GHANAIAN MUNICIPALITY

Provisionally accepted
Christopher Senyo Adzaho Christopher Senyo Adzaho *Emmanuel Appiah-Brempong Emmanuel Appiah-Brempong Princess Ruhama Acheampong Princess Ruhama Acheampong Ernest Ekutor Ernest Ekutor
  • School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Globally, 19 to 22 million children are visually impaired. A huge number of children therefore will not be able to learn effectively even if the best educational institutions are made available to them. This ultimately leaves a potential negative effect on their quality of life, educational opportunities and livelihoods. School health programs (SHPs) present a unique opportunity to provide comprehensive eye health services to children. This study assessed the availability of School Eye Health Programs (SEHPs) in a municipality in Ghana.In a cross-sectional study, semi-structured questionnaires and interview guides were used to collect data from 60 Headteachers, 17 School Health Coordinators and 7 Key Health Workers.No school in the municipality had a comprehensive SEHP being implemented. However, over 60% of schools had at some point introduced at least one component of SEHP, mainly Vitamin A supplementation and vision screening. Community and Public Health Nurses are the commonly used human resource for such programs. There were no available guidelines for program implementation and no systems in place for ensuring follow-up visits and provision of spectacles to those with refractive errors. Key barriers identified included the lack of financial resources and adequately trained personnel.Comprehensive school eye health programs are unavailable in the study area and there is an urgent need for their implementation to avert the potential adverse effects of vision impairment on the education of children.

    Keywords: School eye health, eye health intervention, Child eye health, Vision Screening, eye health education, school health

    Received: 21 Jul 2024; Accepted: 18 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Adzaho, Appiah-Brempong, Acheampong and Ekutor. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Christopher Senyo Adzaho, School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.