The Amount of Under-correction of the Initial Eyeglass Prescription for Children with Myopia

<p>【Purpose】We investigated the amount of under-correction of the initial eyeglass prescription, which is the difference between the fully-corrected refraction value and the actually prescribed spectacle power in children with myopia.</p><p>【Subjects and Methods】Subjects were 1,503 elementary and junior high school students (703 boys and 800 girls) without ocular diseases except refraction error, who had visited the pediatric ophthalmology outpatient department between March 2015 and March 2021. All the subjects were diagnosed with myopia or myopia astigmatism with astigmatism of ＜－1.00D. The subjects included 615 lower-grade elementary school students (Group A, 300 boys and 315 girls), 598 higher-grade elementary school students (Group B, 274 boys and 324 girls), and 290 junior high school students (Group C, 129 boys and 161 girls). The spherical equivalent power for the full correction required to achieve visual acuity of 1.2, the amount of under-correction, the percentage of the subjects with under-correction of ≥1.00D, and the reason for the under-correction prescription were all investigated and compared among the 3 groups.</p><p>【Results】Significant decreases (P＜0.0001) in the average refraction and the amount of under-correction were observed among the 3 groups. By gender, a significant difference (Group A (P＜0.05) Group C (P＜0.001)) in the average refraction was seen between boys and girls in Group A and C. A significant difference (P＜0.01) in the average amount of under-correction between boys and girls was only seen in Group C. No significant difference in the percentage of the subjects with under-correction of ≥1.00D was observed either among the 3 groups or between boys and girls. The most common reason for the under-correction prescription in all 3 groups was “The under-corrected glasses were the only glasses that the patients could wear”.</p><p>【Conclusion】The average refraction of the initial full corrective lenses and the amount of under-correction significantly decreased as the children's age increased.</p>