Dr. SAROJ GUPTA

Abstract

A longitudinal study was done in children between 7 and 14 years of age with myopia to investigate the influence of time spent outdoors on myopia progression. Myopia was evaluated, every 6 months for 18 months. Parents were asked to record daily outdoor activity of the child in hours per day.The magnitude of the association between time spent outdoors and myopia progression was determined by two mixed-effects model. Total 495 children participated. Intra-individual assocation between SE and activity scores (in hours) for three subsequent visit was calculated by repeated measures correlation as – 0.26 (– 0.21 to – 0.30, p-value = 0.001) which showed a statistically significant negative directional relationship between outdoor activity and myopia. Each hour increase in outdoor activity per day had a protective effect on the progression of myopia in follow up visits.

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