Abstract
Purpose :
Since 1991, Japan has had a preschool vision screening system to detect pediatric eye diseases by the age of 3 years. As these screenings are preliminary, further examination by an eye-health professional is necessary. However, according to a 2012 study by the Japan ophthalmologists association, the post-screening reexamination rate is only 62%. Thus, we formulated questionnaires to determine how well guardians understand pediatric eye diseases and corrective lenses in children. These results should help improve reexamination rates.
Methods :
Questionnaires were administered to guardians (typically mothers) of preschool children at the vision screening. They included four questions on knowledge of strabismus, amblyopia, congenital cataract, and anisometropic amblyopia. In addition, two questions on wearing glasses were as follows: “To what degree do you negatively view glasses-wearing in children?” and “Do you think visual acuity of your children becomes worse when they begin wearing glasses?” A multiple regression analysis and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were performed for each question.
Results :
Data were gathered from 229 respondents, and used from 192 respondents who completed the entire questionnaire. The rate of respondents who were knowledgeable about pediatric eye diseases were as follows: strabismus 87.5%, amblyopia 75.5%, congenital cataract 69.3%, and anisometropic amblyopia 24.5%. The rate of respondents who reported a negative impression of wearing glasses was 69.8%. Multivariate analyses indicated a significant relationship between the degree of knowledge about amblyopia and the mother’s age. Younger mothers believed that their child’s visual acuity would worsen if they began wearing glasses. There was a significant positive correlation between mothers who had negative impressions of children wearing glasses, and those who believed visual acuity worsened with wearing glasses. A significant negative correlation was observed between the mothers who believed visual acuity worsened with glasses, and the degree of mother’s knowledge of strabismus, amblyopia, and anisometropic amblyopia.
Conclusions :
The screeners and ophthalmologists that orchestrate the Japanese preschool vision screenings should make efforts to give guardians more information on pediatric eye diseases and the benefits of corrective lenses in children.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.