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.