Arabic near test chart for partially sighted patients.

This paper describes the design of an Arabic alphabet near acuity chart for examination of partially sighted patients. The alphabets used have similar legibility values (0.92 to 1.05) (Mean = 1.00) (SD = 0.05) and each row of the chart has similar legibility values as the others. The LogMAR method of acuity scaling was used, therefore each row is larger in size than the preceding row by a constant value of 1.26 (0.1 log unit). The inter-letter space in a row is equal to the breadth of each letter in the row and the inter-row spacing is equal the height of letters in the subjacent row. The chart has 10 rows and visual acuity values range from 9.6 to 1.2 M (LogMAR 1.4 to 0.5) at 40 cm, corresponding to Snellen 6/144 to 6/18, 20/480 to 20/60. The chart will be useful for examining Arabic-speaking partially sighted subjects.