Prevalence and risk factors for myopia and other refractive errors in an adult population in southern India

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate prevalence and risk factors for myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism in southern India. Methods: Randomly sampled villages were enumerated to identify people aged ≥40 years. Participants were interviewed for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors and attended a hospital-based ophthalmic examination including visual acuity measurement and objective and subjective measurement of refractive status. Myopia was defined as spherical equivalent (SE) worse than −0.75 dioptres (D), hyperopia as SE ≥+1D and astigmatism as cylinder