Agreement between the Farnsworth Panel D-15 and Ishihara Tests in Screening for Congenital RedGreen Color Vision Defect

Kitthisak Kitthaweesin M.D.
Kaevalin Lekhanont M.D.

ABSTRACT : Our prospective study was carried out on, 1,331 male volunteers between 21 and 45 years of age. All the volunteers were randomly tested with either the Farnsworth Panel D-15 or the Ishihara test first then by the other test. Forty-Five subjects (3.38%) were diagnosed as having the red-green defect. The Farnsworth Panel D-15 detected the red-green color defect in 43 subjects while the Ishihara in 45. A significant statistical agreement exists between the tests (kappa = 0.98, p < 0.001) and this agreement held for all stratified age groups. Detecting the red-green defect by the Farnsworth Panel D-15 was significantly faster (2.65 ? 0.67 minutes) than the Ishihara test (3.14 ? 0.76 minutes). However, the Ishihara test was faster detecting color-normal subjects (1.82 ? 0.23 minute) than eh Farnsworth Panel D-15 test (2.03 ? 0.62 minutes).

Thai J Ophthalmol 2002 ; January-June 16(1) : 35-38.

Key word : Agreement, Farnsworth Panel D-15, Ishihara, Red-green color vision defect