Prevalence of Refractive Error among the Students of Medical College of Northern Border Region KSA

Background: Refractive errors (REs) represent a significant global public health challenge as a leading global cause of vision impairment and the second most frequent cause of treatable blindness. These conditions arise when the axial length or corneal curvature of the eye disrupt the precise focus of light on the retina. Despite their high prevalence, data regarding the distribution of specific refractive error types among medical students in the Northern Border region of Saudi Arabia remain limited. Objective: To determine the prevalence of refractive errors and evaluate their association with demographic factors (age and gender) among medical students at Northern Border University (NBU), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted between March and April 2025. Data were collected via a validated electronic questionnaire distributed to male and female medical students at Northern border university. The survey assessed demographic characteristics and the prevalence of specific refractive conditions, including myopia, hypermetropia, and astigmatism, along with their respective dioptric severities. Data were managed in a spreadsheet and analysed via IBM SPSS. Categorical variables are expressed as frequencies and percentages, while normally distributed continuous data are presented as mean ± standard deviation. Statistical associations between categorical variables were assessed using Chi-square tests. Results: A total of 257 students participated (36.6% male, 63.4% female). The overall prevalence of refractive error was 59.1% (n=152), while 40.9% (n=105) of the cohort reported no refractive issues. Myopia was the most frequent refractive error, affecting 28% (n=72) of the total sample and accounting for 49.7% of all diagnosed cases. This was followed by myopia combined with astigmatism (17.1% total; 30.3% of RE cases), isolated astigmatism (8.2% total; 13.8% of RE cases), hypermetropia (4.3% total), and hypermetropia combined with astigmatism (1.7% total). In this specific sample, neither gender nor age group showed a significant correlation with the presence of myopia. The distribution of vision status appeared to be relatively uniform across the provided demographic groups. However, there was a highly significant association between myopia and astigmatism (p