Introduction: Refractive error is the most common cause of visual impairment among the school children. The visual acuity screening has long been administered through the school health service in Malaysia. The objective of this study was to examine the status of refractive error in the school health screening from year 1990 to 2017. Methods: Every year an average of 1.2 million students were screened for refractive errors through school health service. Stu-dents with visual acuity reading of 6/9 or worst based on 6-meter Snellen chart ware referred for confirmation of refractive error. Secondary data on school visual acuity screening from the Health Informatics for the period of 1990 to 2017 were used to describe the changing pattern of refractive errors. Results: It was observed that the prevalent of suspected refractive errors amongst the Standard 1 student increased from 7 per 1,000 students examined in 1990 to 44.4 per 1,000 students in the 2000 and further increased to 74 per 1,000 students before slow decline to 55 per 1,000 students from year 2015 to 2017. A higher level of detection was observed for students in standard 6 and form 3 between the period of 1990 to 2009 (78/1,000 and 65/1,000 respectively) and further decline thereafter to lowest level in 2017 (33/1,000 to 21.5/1,000 respectively). Conclusion: The Standard 1 students in the 21st century have higher rate of suspected refractive errors compared to their counterpart that lived in the 20th century. Community awareness program need to be introduce for early detection of visual acuity problem.
Introduction: Learning disability (LD) is a neurologically related processing problem which can interfere with basic and higher learning skill. The prevalence of learning disability was estimated to be ranging from 5 and 9 percent in general population. The aim of this study was to describe the trend of LD among lower primary school children particularly among Year 3 school children from 2013 to 2018. Methods: Data were taken from the Ministry of Health database on LD among lower primary school children particularly among Year 3 school children in Malaysia from 2013 until 2018. These data were collected from the assessment of LD school children who were referred from schools nationwide to the government medical practitioners. Results: There were approximately 2.6 million Year 3 school children in Malaysia from 2013 until 2018. Of these, a total of 9,063 school children were diagnosed to have LD. There was an increase trend in the incidence of LD from 13 per 10,000 school children in 2013 to 77 per 10,000 school children in 2016. From 2017 onwards there was a reduction in the incidence which consistently remained at 35 per 10,000 school children. Of these, the highest incidence was seen in school children with Intellectual Disabil-ity (ranging from 18 to 36 per 10,000 school children) followed by those with Specific Learning Disability (ranging from 1 to 23 per 10,000 school children) from 2013 until 2018. Conclusion: Learning disability although not as common as other disabilities in general population is still an important issue that need to be tackled to improve the well-being of those affected.