The objective: retrospective study of the dynamics of the prevalence of ophthalmic pathology and the effectiveness of preventive diagnostic examinations of visual functions in children of different age groups. Materials and methods. To conduct the study we used data from reporting forms 12, 14, 19 and 31-health from the official statistical reporting of the Center for Medical Statistics of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine. Construction of dynamic series for retrospective analysis and finding out the presence of established trends covered a 15-year research period from 2003 to 2017. During the research, such methods as medical-statistical one, content analysis, system approach and system analysis were used. Results. According to the results of the study, it was found that the prevalence of eye diseases and its accessory apparatus increases with the age of the child, having the lowest value in the age group of children 0–6 years old (3.0±0.685%) and the highest rate was in the age group of adolescents 15–17 years (8.0±0.651%). A comparison of the prevalence refractive errors values, in particular myopia, among preschool children according to the results of 2017 shows an increased indicator with the age of children by almost 10 times (p<0.0001). A retrospective analysis of the formation of indicators dynamics of the visual impairment in children frequency detection in different ages revealed a tendency towards an increase in the values of the indicator in the age group of 7-year-old children and a significant increase in the age group of older adolescents (15–17 years) from 69.5 cases per 1000 examined children of this age in 2003 to 86.77 similar cases in 2017. Conclusions. The increasing prevalence of diagnosed disorders of visual functions among children who started school at the age of 7 years and school adolescents of 9-10 classes the expediency of paying attention to preventive diagnostic ophthalmological examinations and primary prevention measures among these age groups. Primary prevention, including the elimination of controlled risk factors for the development of visual impairments among the children’s population, is a necessary task, the implementation of which requires the combined efforts of all adults who are close to children, parents, teachers, doctors of all levels (primary and specialized ophthalmic) medical care.