Posters

Myopia in young adults: does lifestyle really matter?

Poster Details

First Author: E.Kanonidou GREECE

Co Author(s):    C. Kanonidou   A. Lioura   T. Lalias   F. Sakkias   L. Papazisis   G. Sakkias

Abstract Details

Purpose:

Myopia is a common refractive error and the myopic population is growing. Our purpose is to evaluate the lifestyle characteristics as a risk factor associated with the prevalence of myopia.

Setting:

Department of Ophthalmology, ‘’Hippokrateion’’ General Hospital of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.

Methods:

90 patients with myopia (42 males / 48 female) with mean age of 32.8 years participated in the study. All were at least high-school graduates and worked as hospital administrative staff which requires extensive computer use. All wore glasses or contact lenses for distance vision correction only and had no other ocular disease. The lifestyle features of the participants were assessed with the use of a self-administered questionnaire

Results:

87% of the participants spent all their childhood living in a metropolitan area and 82% of them were university graduates. While all made extensive use of computers at work, they also spent much of their non-working time in activities requiring continuous viewing of a close object such a computer screen or book. 81% mentioned that they hardly occupied themselves on outdoor activities such as walks, games or sports. Increased duration of near work and less total time spent on outdoor activities were lifestyle-related characteristics that they adopted since childhood.

Conclusions:

Our findings suggest that myopia is associated with lifestyle features such as excessive amount of near vision work and low levels of outdoor activity. These observations should alert health professionals and teachers to encourage children to occupy themselves less on indoor and more on different activities such as outdoor walks, games or sports. FINANCIAL DISCLOUSRE: NONE