State Key Laboratory of Ophthalmology, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory, Guangzhou, China.
BMJ Open. 2021 Nov 5;11(11):e049846. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-049846.
Myopia is the common cause of reduced uncorrected visual acuity among school-age children. It is more prevalent in urban than in rural areas. Although many myopia studies have focused on the effect of urbanisation, it remains unclear how visual experience in urban regions could affect childhood myopia. This study aims to investigate the incidence and prevalence of myopia among school-age children in urban and rural settings, thereby identifying the environmental factors that affect the onset and progression of myopia.
A school-based cohort study will be conducted. We will enroll all first-grade students from an urban (10 primary schools) and a rural (10 primary schools) regions of Zhaoqing city, China. Over 3-year follow-up period, students will receive detailed eye examinations annually and complete questionnaires about living habits and environment. In a 5% random subsample of the cohort, physical activity, light intensity and eye-tracking data will be obtained using wearable devices, and high-resolution macular images will be obtained by optical coherence tomography (OCT). The primary outcome is incident myopia, defined as myopia (spherical equivalent refractive of at least -0.5D) detected during follow-up among those without myopia at baseline.
Ethics approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center (number: 2019KYPJ171). Study findings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
NCT04219228.
近视是学龄儿童未矫正视力下降的常见原因。城市地区的近视发病率高于农村地区。尽管许多近视研究都集中在城市化的影响上，但城市环境中的视觉体验如何影响儿童近视的发病机制仍不清楚。本研究旨在调查城市和农村学龄儿童近视的发病率和患病率，从而确定影响近视发病和进展的环境因素。
将进行一项基于学校的队列研究。我们将招募来自中国肇庆市城区（10 所小学）和农村地区（10 所小学）的所有一年级学生。在 3 年的随访期间，学生将每年接受详细的眼部检查，并完成有关生活习惯和环境的问卷调查。在队列的 5%随机子样本中，将使用可穿戴设备获得身体活动、光照强度和眼动追踪数据，并通过光学相干断层扫描（OCT）获得高分辨率的黄斑图像。主要结局是近视的发病情况，定义为在基线时无近视的患者在随访期间发现的近视（等效球镜屈光度至少为-0.5D）。
本研究已获得中山大学中山眼科中心伦理委员会的批准（编号：2019KYPJ171）。研究结果将发表在同行评议的期刊上。
NCT04219228。
