Color Vision Deficiency in Zahedan, Iran: Lower Than Expected

Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of congenital red-green color vision defects in the elementary school students of Zahedan in 2012.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 1000 students with a mean (±SD) age of 9.0 (±1.4) years were selected randomly from a large primary school population. Color vision was evaluated using the Ishihara pseudoisochromatic color plates (38-plate edition). A daylight fluorescent tube was used as an illuminant C equivalent (i.e., 860 lux, color rendering index greater than 92, and color temperature = 6500 K). Having more than three misreadings on the test was considered a failing criterion. Data were analyzed in SPSS version 17 software using χ2 tests.

Results: Nine students (0.9%) made more than three errors on the Ishihara test. Based on this criterion, the prevalence of red-green color vision deficiency in girls and boys was 0.2 and 1.6% (p = 0.02), respectively.

Conclusions: The prevalence of red-green color vision deficiency was found to be significantly lower in Zahedan than comparable reports in the literature.