TITLE:
Parental myopia, near work, hours of sleep and myopia in Chinese children
AUTHORS:
Yanhong Gong, Xiulan Zhang, Donghua Tian, Dafang Wang, Gexing Xiao
KEYWORDS:
Parental Myopia; Near Work; Hours of Sleep; Myopia
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.6 No.1,
January
7,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Background/Aims: Juvenile myopia is a serious
problem in China, the prevalence of which stays at a high level and shows an
upward trend. The target of this study was to explore the factors associated with myopia in Chinese children. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis in a random sample survey was conducted in
Beijing in 2008. The data collected from 15,316 Chinese school students aged 6 to 18 years, randomly selected from 19 schools were evaluated, including noncycloplegic refraction and
possible genetic, environmental and behavioral factors, to explore the key risk
factors for myopia. Univariate and multiple
logistic regression analyses were performed to compare the OR values,
and receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to compare the
differences among the areas under the ROC curves using the method of multiple
comparison with the best. Results: Myopia was associated
with shorter sleep times versus longer sleep times (adjusted OR = 3.37;
95%CI 3.07-3.70), and the multivariate OR for two compared with no parents with
myopic was 2.83 (95%CI 2.47-3.24) and 1.95 (95%CI 1.69-2.24) for reading or
writing distances less than33 cmcompared to distances greater than33 cm. Controlling for other
factors, children that slept for shorter
periods of time had significantly more myopic refractions (?1.69D vs ?1.29D for children with longer
sleeping time per day). Analysis of the areas under the ROC curves showed five
variables with predictable values better than chance: age, sleeping time,
reading or writing
distance, hours of
studying, and parental myopia. Conclusion: It was not surprising, as proved by
other studies, that parental myopia, reading or writing distances, time spent
on studying or other activities by using eyes were dominant risk factors associated with juvenile myopia. Our findings indicated that hours of sleeping were also closely related to
juvenile myopia, in which the underlying mechanism should be explored in the
future study.