Abstract
Purpose: To determine the prevalence of refractive errors in carpet weaving population of Kashmir valley.

Methods: In this cross sectional study, the sample was taken from various carpet weaving centres of Srinagar, carpet weaver was taken as a person who wove carpets for more than 7 hours a day for at least 1 year or more. The variables of age, gender, duration of carpet weaving and ocular components with respect to their frequency, were observed. Persons suffering from anterior and posterior segment diseases, malnutrition, fever or any debilitating diseases which could directly or indirectly alter the refractive state of eye were excluded from the study.

Results: In this study, 500 carpet weavers were evaluated, 386(77.20%) were males and 114(22.80%) were females. Out of 500 cases 326(65.20%) were found to have some error of refraction. The prevalence of myopia without astigmatism was highest at 284(56.80%) followed by myopic astigmatism at 30(6.00%) and hypermetropia was seen in 12(2.40%) carpet weavers. Moreover it was observed that longer the duration of involvement in carpet weaving more the incidence of refractive errors and refraction in carpet weavers had a significant relation to the ocular components

Conclusion: The results of this study showed that carpet weaving had a strong correlation with myopia. In addition to duration of near work, variation in refraction may be due to the changes of ocular components particularly axial length (AL) and vitreous chamber depth (VCD).

Key words: : Myopia, Hypermetropia, Astigmatism, Ocular Biometry, Refractive Error, Carpet Weaving.