Color Vision Deficiency in Medical Students in Jammu & Kashmir, India

Abstract

Non recognition of any of the three colors is known as color blindness. Color blindness is the commonly used term for deficiency of color vision. Word color blindness is a misnomer as anyone labeled as it, is extremely rare to be totally color blind hence more correctly called color vision deficiencies (CVD). Color vision is a function of three types of cone pigments present in retina. The incidence of Color vision deficiency is common in medical profession and affects the diagnosis and treatment of patients but still it remains the most neglected aspect of vision. Color is very important sign used in medical profession, but there is no effective screening for Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) at any level of medical profession. The present study was undertaken to find out CVD in medical students of Government medical college Srinagar.
 Material and Method: A total of 300 medical students (MBBS, BDS, NURSING) including 154 males and 146 females between 18-20 years of age were examined for CVD in Medical College using Ishihara pseudoisochromatic plates. After taking history on structured proforma the students were shown Ishihara’s test plates under day light at normal reading distance.
 Results: Among 154 males, 11 were color deficient (7.14%), and among 146 females, 1 (0.68%) had color vision deficiency. Deutranomalia (41.6%) was the most common type of CVD followed by Protanomalia (25%) then Protanopia (16.7%) and Deutranopia (16.7%), respectively.
 Conclusions: With this high incidence of color vision deficiency, students with CVD may feel difficulty in day-today practice in medical field. So, screening for CVD in medical students at the time of admission is very important which may help in early management of CVD and with timely counseling proper adaptive strategies can be adopted.