Oculo-Visual Findings among Industrial Mine Workers at Goldfields Ghana Limited, Tarkwa.

OBJECTIVE

The focus of this study was to evaluate the visual status of mine workers who were directly involved in mining and/or are exposed to the mining environment.

METHODS

A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted. Four hundred and six (406) workers were conveniently sampled for the study. Information on their socio-demographic data was also collected. In addition, all participants underwent ophthalmic examination.

RESULTS

The mean age of the workers was 41.1 years. Visual impairment was found in 114 (28.1%) of the study population of which refractive error (56.8%) was the major cause. Presbyopia was also observed in 45.5% of the workers with only 30.3% of them wearing near correction. The prevalence of eye diseases were pterygium/pingueculae (25.8%), conjunctivitis (26.8%), suspected glaucoma (15.3%), and cataract (7.4%).

CONCLUSIONS

Visual impairment and eye diseases were found among the miners.