Prevalence of Amblyopia in Iranian Children

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Amblyopia is one of the common eye diseases in children and the risk of vision loss is possible. Therefore, the aim of this study is systematic review and meta-analysis in order to align the studies on the prevalence of amblyopia in Iranian children. METHODS: In this systematic review and meta-analysis relevant articles in scientific databases including SID, Science Direct and Medline (PubMed) and Google Scholar in March 1999- February 2017, using the Persian and English Keywords of Amblyopia, children, Iran. FINDINGS: In the review of internal and external journals and search on SID databases 22 articles, PubMed 126 articles, Science Direct 112 articles and 116 Google Scholar search engines were obtained. Then the articles that had the initial conditions for entry into the study were 162 cases based on preliminary studies, with the elimination of 214 repetitive articles. Finally, removing 120 articles unrelated to the topic of the study and removing 24 articles in the secondary studies ultimately 18 papers entered the meta-analysis process. The overall Prevalence of amblyopia in Iranian children was 5.4 % (Cl-95%: 3.1%-9.1%). CONCLUSION: According to the results of this study, the prevalence of amblyopia in Iranian children is high.