Prevalence Rate and Factors of Myopia in Preschool Children

Kim, Shin Ja

Abstract

PURPOSE: This study was aimed at providing basic data for developing a nursing intervention program which enables systematic and correct visual acuity care by discovering out visual acuity conditions, prevalence rate of myopia, and the factors related to myopia with Preschool children. METHOD: The subjects of this study consisted of 519 children between 3 and 6 years of age from 12 kindergartens in Seoul which were selected through multiple cluster sampling. Myopia was defined as the spherical equivalent (SE) of more than -0.5 diopters (D) inthe right eye. The data was analyzed by t-test, X2-test, ANOVA, and logistic regression by using the SAS program. RESULT: The prevalence rate of myopia was 8.7%. the odds ratio of child myopia when one parent had myopia was 2.2 times higher than when neither parent had myopia. The odds ratio of child myopia when reading more than three books per week was 0.27 times higher than reading less than three books. CONCLUSION: Myopia should be continuously and intensively managed from the age of 3.