Original articleRefractive Error and Visual Impairment in School-Age Children in Gombak District, Malaysia
Section snippets
Sample Selection
Gombak District is 1 of 9 districts in the state of Selangor and part of the metropolitan Kuala Lumpur area. The district has an urban population representative of the multiethnicity of Malaysia. The Gombak District population was 553 410 in the 2000 Census—14% of the total Selangor population—with 58.7% Malay, 26.0% Chinese, 12.6% Indian, and 1.9% other minorities.14 The district has 1 tertiary government hospital (Hospital Selayang), 1 secondary government hospital, 2 private hospitals, 10
Study Population
As the enumeration of eligible children proceeded, it became apparent that the required sample size would not be reached with the originally selected 25 clusters. Accordingly, an additional 10 clusters were randomly selected for inclusion in the study. A total of 35 clusters were, thus, enumerated between January and March 2003. One cluster was subsequently dropped from the study, because the government had moved most of the families to a new location.
A total of 8541 households were identified.
Discussion
A total of 5528 children were enumerated and 4634 (83.8%) examined in this cross-sectional, population-based survey of school-age children in Gombak District. Age distributions of enumerated and examined children were nearly uniform until decreasing with the 13-year cohort and then decreasing further in 15 year olds. This drop-off in examined cases was the result of a smaller number of enumerated cases (older children might have moved away to study in residential schools elsewhere) and of lower
Acknowledgment
The following are recognized for contributions to this study: Dr. Mariam Ismail for administrative support; Dr. A. R. Rosniza, Dr. Ang Chin Sim, Dr. Go Eng Song, I. Nor-Azizah, H. A. Arini, I. Farahiyah, A. H. Rohaiza, M. Diana, and M. Syamzariah for field work and clinical examinations; the Clinical Research Centre, Ministry of Health Malaysia, and the Department of Statistics, Selangor, for sampling and enumeration; Dr. H. Salleh and the Ministry of Education for permission to conduct ocular
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Manuscript no. 240549.
Supported by the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland (under National Institutes of Health [Bethesda, Maryland] contract no. N01-EY-2103), and the Ministry of Health Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Major Research Grant no. 2003/13).
The authors have no financial or other conflicts of interest concerning this study.