Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar 18;16(3):434-441.
doi: 10.18240/ijo.2023.03.15. eCollection 2023.

Prevalence of refractive errors in children of Puerto Rico

Héctor C Santiago  1 , Mayra Rullán  1 , Katerin Ortiz  1 , Andrés Rivera  1 , Mónica Nieves  1 , José Piña  1 , Zulmaris Torres  1 , Yvette Mercado  1
Affiliations

Prevalence of refractive errors in children of Puerto Rico

Héctor C Santiago et al. Int J Ophthalmol. .

Abstract

Aim: To determine the prevalence of refractive error in 5- to 17-year-old schoolchildren in Puerto Rico.

Methods: A quantitative descriptive study of 2867 children aged 5 to 17y from all seven educational regions of Puerto Rico was conducted from 2016-2019. Refractive error was determined via static and subjective refraction. Children with distance acuity ≤20/40 or near visual acuity ≤20/32 had a cycloplegic refraction. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, correlation coefficient, Kruskal-Wallis, Chi-square, and t test calculations.

Results: Twenty percent of the children had a spherical equivalent refractive error ≤ -0.50 D, 3.2% had a spherical equivalent ≥ +2.00 D, and 10.4% had astigmatism ≥1 D. There was a statistically (but non-clinically) significant myopic change in spherical equivalent refractive error with age (P<0.001). The prevalence of myopia increased with age (P<0.001) but not hyperopia (P=0.59) or astigmatism (P=0.51). Males had a significantly higher hyperopic spherical equivalent than females (P<0.001). Females had a higher prevalence of myopia (P<0.001) than males, but there was no difference in the hyperopia (P=0.74) or astigmatism prevalence (P=0.87).

Conclusion: The prevalence of a spherical equivalent equal to or less than -0.50 D (myopia, 20.7%) is one of the highest among similar-aged children worldwide. Further studies should explore the rate of myopia progression in children in Puerto Rico. Individual children must be monitored to examine the need for treatment of myopia progression.

Keywords: Puerto Rico; children; hyperopia; myopia; refractive error.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Mean spherical equivalent of the refractive error (diopters) by the age of the child (years) in a sample of school children in Puerto Rico.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Naidoo KS, Leasher J, Bourne RR, et al. Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease Study. Global vision impairment and blindness due to uncorrected refractive error, 1990-2010. Optom Vis Sci. 2016;93(3):227–234. - PubMed
    1. Gupta N, Gupta V, Arora L, Vashist P. Refractive error & childhood visual impairment. Adv Ophthalmol Vis Syst. 2016;5(2):218–219.
    1. Bhutia KL, Bhutia SC, Gupta N, Shenga DO. Prevalence of refractive errors among the school-going children in East Sikkim. Indian J Ophthalmol. 2021;69(8):2018–2020. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baird PN, Jonas JB. Uncorrected refractive error in the Australian national eye health survey. Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2020;48(1):9–11. - PubMed
    1. Simons HD, Gassler PA. Vision anomalies and reading skill: a meta-analysis of the literature. Am J Optom Physiol Opt. 1988;65(11):893–904. - PubMed