Prevalence and risk factors for refractive errors in the South Indian adult population: The Andhra Pradesh Eye disease study

Aim: To report the prevalence, risk factors and associated population attributable risk percentage (PAR) for refractive errors in the South Indian adult population. Methods: A population-based cross-sectional epidemiologic study was conducted in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. A multistage cluster, systematic, stratifi ed random sampling method was used to obtain participants (n = 10293) for this study. Results: The age-gender-area-adjusted prevalence rates in those (cid:2) 40 years of age were determined for myopia (spherical equivalent [SE] (cid:3) − 0.5 D) 34.6% (95% confi dence interval [CI]: 33.1–36.1), high-myopia (SE (cid:3) − 5.0 D) 4.5% (95% CI: 3.8–5.2), hyperopia (SE (cid:4) + 0.5 D) 18.4% (95% CI: 17.1–19.7), astigmatism (cylinder (cid:3) − 0.5 D) 37.6% (95% CI: 36–39.2), and anisometropia (SE difference between right and left eyes (cid:4) 0.5 D) 13.0% (95% CI: 11.9–14.1). The prevalence of myopia, astigmatism, high-myopia, and anisometropia signifi cantly increased with increasing age (all p (cid:3) 0.0001). There was no gender difference in prevalence rates in any type of refractive error, though women had a signifi cantly higher rate of hyperopia than men (p (cid:3) 0.0001). Hyperopia was signifi cantly higher among those with a higher educational level (odds ratio [OR] 2.49; 95% CI: 1.51–3.95) and signifi cantly higher among the hypertensive group (OR 1.24; 95% CI: 1.03–1.49). The severity of lens nuclear opacity was positively associated with myopia and negatively associated with hyperopia. Conclusions: The prevalence of myopia in this adult Indian population is much higher than in similarly aged white populations. These results confi rm the previously reported association between myopia, hyperopia, and nuclear opacity.

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