Abstract
Purpose :
Myopia has well established demographic and environmental risk factors such as education and time spent outdoors. These risk factors are less well recognized for hyperopia. We aimed to study known risk factors for myopia in relation to hyperopia in 9-year-old multi ethnic urban children in the Netherlands.
Methods :
This study was part of the population-based birth-cohort study Generation R from Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in which 1,586 children completed an extensive ophthalmologic examination and questionnaires. Cycloplegic refractive error was obtained after 30 minutes of cyclopentolate 1% instilled 3 times in both eyes. Hyperopia was defined as spherical equivalent (SE) of ≥ +2.0 D as an average of both eyes. The risk factors European ethnicity, parental myopia, outdoor activity (hr/day), reading distance (<30cm), books read per week (≥1) and time spent on near work (>15 hr/week) were obtained using questionnaires. A combined near work risk score was calculated from these last three variables. Risk of hyperopia was calculated using multivariable logistic regression adjusted for age and gender.
Results :
The mean age of the children was 9.8 years (SD ±0.31), the mean SE was 0.73 D (SD ±1.30) and 49.7% were girls. The prevalence of hyperopia was 9.5% (n= 150). Hyperopic children less often had myopic parents (OR 0.64 95% CI 0.45 – 0.91, P = 0.015). There was no significant association with European ethnicity (OR 0.99 95% CI 0.65 – 1.48, P = 0.96), or time spent outdoor (OR 1.11 95% CI 0.93 – 1.31, P = 0.23). Likewise, neither the near work related factors reading distance (OR 0.74 95% CI 0.52 – 1.05, P = 0.10), time spent on near work (OR 0.96 95% CI 0.67 – 1.36, P = 0.81), and books read per week (OR 0.88 95% CI 0.63 – 1.25, P = 0.49), nor the combined risk score (OR 0.40 95% CI 0.14 – 1.19, P = 0.10) were significantly associated with hyperopia.
Conclusions :
This study found that hyperopic children mostly have non-myopic parents. Lifestyle factors appeared to have little effect on hyperopia, suggesting a more prominent genetic background.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.