Prevalence of Convergence Insufficiency in Patients Suffering from Headache.

Abstract

Objective: To find out the prevalence of convergence insufficiency (CI) in patients suffering from headache. Study Design: Cross Sectional, Observational study. Setting: Departments of Eye, The Children’s Hospitals and The Institute of Child Health, Multan and Govt. Shahbaz Sharif Hospital, Multan. Period: August 2020 to January 2021. Material & Methods: A total of 95 patients between the ages of 08-62 years with a complaint of headache were examined. Both male and female patients having complaint of headache, patients more than 07 years of age and patients with complaint of discomfort and blur vision at near after focusing for few minutes were included. While uncooperative patients, patients less than 07 year of age and patients having systemic and neurological diseases that can cause headache were excluded. Patient's visual acuity (VA) was recorded with Snellen’s chart and refraction was done with retinoscopy/ auto refractometer. Fundoscopy was carried out to find out any pathology i.e., papilledema. Convergence was checked by pencil push-up test and amplitude of accommodation was measured using RAF rule. Descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were extracted for categorical variables and mean ± standard deviation (SD) for quantitative variables. Results: In this study, we recruited 95 patients with a complaint of headache between the ages of 08-62 years and mean age was 27.80 years. 68 (71.60 %) were female and 27 (28.40 %) were male. These patients were examined to determine the prevalence of convergence inefficiency in patients suffering from a headache. Out of these 95 patients having headache 27 (28.4%) had poor convergence, 42 (44.2%) had weak convergence and 26 (27.4%) had normal convergence. This study suggested that 69 (72.6%) patients with headache had varying degree of CI. Conclusion: Our study suggested that headache is more common in females than males and CI is the most common cause of headache among these patients. These patients should be assessed and treated to relieve their symptoms and enable them to spend a better quality of life. We recommend ophthalmologists and optometrists to measure CI as a part of their routine ophthalmic examination.