Myopia among optometry students.

Four hundred forty-seven of five hundred beginning 2nd-year optometry students responded to a survey requesting them to report the equivalent sphere of the lenses neutralizing their most ametropic eye and, if myopic, the age at which they were first prescribed lenses. The population was 20% female, 80% male, and predominately Caucasian. The mean refractive status was -2.21 D with a range from -11.00 to +5.50 D. Seventy-five percent of the respondees were myopes. There was a clear relation between final amount of myopia and the age at which corrective lenses were first prescribed. New myopes did not seek care in equal numbers at each age, but instead clustered in three groups: ages 8 to 9 years, 12 to 13 years, and 19 years. Regression characteristics were different when myopes of 0.12 to 6.00 D were segregated from the total group, suggesting different rates of change, and, by implication, different populations within the group. Females tended to become myopic earlier. There were proportionately more high myopes among the females than among the males.