Prevalence and association of refractive anisometropia with near work habits among young schoolchildren: The evidence from a population-based study.

Background: Lifestyle behaviour may play a role in refractive error among children, but the association between near work habits and refractive anisometropia remains unclear.

Methods: We estimated the prevalence of refractive anisometropia and examined its association with near work activities among 23,114 children in the Myopia Investigation Study in Taipei who were grade 2 elementary school students at baseline in 2013 and 2014. Baseline data on demographics, medical history, parental history and near work habits were collected by parent-administered questionnaire survey. Refractive status was determined by cycloplegic autorefraction. Refractive anisometropia was defined as the spherical equivalent difference ≥ 1.0 diopter between eyes.

Results: The prevalence of refractive anisometropia was 5.3% (95% confidence interval [CI], 5.0% to 5.6%). The prevalence and severity of refractive anisometropia increased with both myopic and hyperopic refractive error. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that refractive anisometropia was significantly associated with myopia (odds ratio [OR], 2.98; 95% CI, 2.53-3.51), hyperopia (OR, 2.37; 95% CI, 1.98-2.83), degree of astigmatism (OR, 1.005; 95% CI, 1.005-1.006), amblyopia (OR, 2.54; 95% CI, 2.06-3.12), male gender (OR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.78-0.99) and senior high school level of maternal education (OR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.52-0.92). Though anisometropic children were more likely to spend more time on near work (crude OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.02-1.29) and to have less eye-to-object distance in doing near work (crude OR, 1.15; 95% CI, 1.01-1.30), these associations became insignificant after additional adjustment for ocular, demographic and parental factors.

Conclusions: The present study provides large-scale, population-based evidence showing no independent association between refractive anisometropia and near work habits, though myopia is associated with refractive anisometropia.