Abstract
Purpose :
An association between childhood diagnosis of strabismus and increased risk of diagnosis of several mental health disorders by early adulthood has been demonstrated in previously published literature, however the number and demographics of such studies are limited. To further examine these potential associations, we performed a large, retrospective cohort study using data from multiple large health organizations in the United States.
Methods :
Patients 0 to 15 years old with a strabismus diagnosis were identified in TriNetX (Cambridge, MA, USA), a federated electronic health records research network comprising multiple large health organizations in the United States. Relative risk of being diagnosed with any one of several mental health disorders between a patient with a strabismus diagnosis versus one without was calculated using logistic regression to control for primary demographic factors and propensity score matching using a greedy nearest-neighbor matching algorithm.
Results :
A total of 131,413 patients with strabismus diagnosed at an average age of 3.7 years old were identified. Patients with a history of strabismus were more likely to be diagnosed with several mental health disorders including generalized anxiety disorder (RR 1.73, 95% CI 1.55-1.93], major depressive disorder (RR 1.22, 95% CI 1.10-1.35), attention deficit hyperactive disorder (RR 1.57, 95% CI 1.51-1.64), substance use disorder (RR 1.60, 95% CI 1.15-2.23), adjustment disorder (RR 1.78, 95% CI 1.63-1.95), obsessive-compulsive disorder (RR 1.63, 95% CI 1.33-1.99), post-traumatic stress disorder (RR 1.21, 95% CI 1.01-1.46), anorexia (RR 1.92, 95% CI 1.73-2.12), conduct disorders (RR 1.75, 95% CI 1.64-1.86), and Tourette’s disorder (RR 1.34, 95% CI 1.02-1.77).
Conclusions :
In the age group studied (0-15 years old), an association exists between previous diagnosis of strabismus and subsequent diagnosis of several mental health disorders. More research is needed to further elucidate these relationships.
This is a 2021 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.