Abstract
Purpose :
The aim of this study is to describe the prevalence of myopia in a multicentric cohort of French individuals.
Methods :
This cross-sectional analysis was carried out between January 2012 and December 2014 in eye clinics dedicated to refractive errors. Data collection included age, gender, refractive subjective error on both eyes and any relevant medical history. Four different groups of individuals with Mild Myopia (-0.5 to -2.75D), Moderate Myopia (-3 to -5.75 D) and High Myopia (-6 to -7.75D and less than -10D) were analyzed. Patients with laser refractive surgery, cataract surgery or those with incomplete demographic data were excluded from the analysis.
Results :
Data files from 276 814 individuals were analyzed and 256 598 individuals were included. The mean age was 37.6 years. Spherical equivalent of the right eye was exclusively analyzed. Overall prevalence of myopia was 38.6% (95% CI 38.4-38.8). Prevalences of mild, moderate, high and very high myopia were respectively 25% (95% CI 24.8-25.2), 10.4% (95% CI 10.3-10.5), 3.23% (95% CI 3.17-3.30), 0.51% (95% CI 0.49-0.54). The age-specific prevalence was higher in the 20-30 year olds in all groups.
Conclusions :
This large cohort provides new insights on the prevalence of myopia in a selected cohort of patients in the French population. Even if possible bias occurred in recruitment, our results are similar to refractive error data collected in nationally representative samples of Caucasians in other studies. This is to our knowledge the largest European series of individuals dedicated to myopia prevalences in different age groups. These results confirm the importance of myopia as a major health issue in Western countries.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.