Development of a risk score for myopia: A cohort study conducted among school-aged children in China

• Published in: Indian journal of ophthalmology 2024-02, Vol.72 (Suppl 2), p.S265-S272
• Main Authors: Shi, Ziwei, Yang, Lihua, Xu, Ting, Jia, Jing, Yang, Song, Yang, Bo, Yang, Wei, Yang, Changchun, Peng, Yan, Gu, Hong, Liu, Caiping, Wei, Sheng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Child; Children; China - epidemiology; Cohort Studies; COVID-19; Demographic aspects; Diagnosis; Elementary school students; High school students; Humans; Male; Medical examination; Myopia; Myopia - diagnosis; Myopia - epidemiology; Original; Refraction, Ocular; Risk Factors; Risk groups; risk score; roc; school-aged children; Vision disorders in children
• ISSN: 0301-4738; 1998-3689; 1998-3689
• DOI: 10.4103/IJO.IJO_2077_23

To evaluate the myopia risk in school-aged children one year after lifting a pandemic-related lockdown and develop a tool to identify high-risk groups. In total, 38,079 children without myopia from 38 schools were included. The outcomes were myopia incidence and progression in 1 year after the COVID-19 lockdown was lifted, both obtained by the spherical equivalent refraction (SER). We separated the population into an exploratory (75%) and a validation sample (25%) to construct the risk score model. In total, 9811 (29.57%) students became myopic, and the overall myopia progression was 0.22 ± 0.62 D. Even less myopia progression was noted in the pre-myopia group at baseline (All: P = 0.045, Boy: P = 0.005). The risk score model included seven predictors: gender, grade, SER at baseline, residence, parental myopia, eye discomfort symptoms, and online courses. The model had a score range of 0-46 and an optimal cutoff of 34. The area under the receiver operating curve of the model was 0.726 (0.719-0.732) for the exploratory sample and 0.731 (0.720-0.742) for the validation sample. The risk score can serve as a practical tool for classifying the risk of myopia in school-aged children.