IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i10p5347-d556433.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of COVID-19 Home Confinement in Children’s Refractive Errors

Author

Listed:
  • Cristina Alvarez-Peregrina

    (Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, 28670 Madrid, Spain)

  • Clara Martinez-Perez

    (Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciências, ISEC LISBOA, 1750-179 Lisboa, Portugal)

  • Cesar Villa-Collar

    (Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, 28670 Madrid, Spain)

  • Cristina Andreu-Vázquez

    (Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, 28670 Madrid, Spain)

  • Alicia Ruiz-Pomeda

    (Ophthalmology Department, Hospital Universitario de Móstoles, 28935 Madrid, Spain)

  • Miguel Ángel Sánchez-Tena

    (Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, 28670 Madrid, Spain
    Instituto Superior de Educação e Ciências, ISEC LISBOA, 1750-179 Lisboa, Portugal)

Abstract

Background: Myopia is a public health problem, with estimations that 50% of the world population will be myopic by 2050. Some environmental factors, such as time spent outdoors, doing near work, and using digital devices, influence the development of myopia in children. Home confinement in Spain has increased these risk factors, so this study aims to investigate the impact of home confinement during the COVID-19 outbreak in the vision of school-aged children; Methods: A cross-sectional study in children between 5 and 7 years old that completed a visual screening and a questionnaire about their lifestyles at opticians in Spain in September and October of 2019 and 2020. Statistical analysis to compare lifestyles pre and post confinement, and vision in 2020 versus a similar cohort examined at the same opticians in 2019, was conducted; Results: Spanish children spent less time outdoors and more time doing near work in 2020 than in 2019 ( p ≤ 0.001). There was a significant decrease of the spherical equivalent (mean ± standard deviation; 0.66 ± 2.03 D in 2019 vs. 0.48 ± 1.81 D in 2020; p ≤ 0.001); Conclusions: Lifestyles of Spanish children changed during the home confinement at the beginning of 2020. Together with changes in their lifestyles, spherical equivalents have decreased, which implies higher figures of myopia for children aged between 5 and 7.

Suggested Citation

  • Cristina Alvarez-Peregrina & Clara Martinez-Perez & Cesar Villa-Collar & Cristina Andreu-Vázquez & Alicia Ruiz-Pomeda & Miguel Ángel Sánchez-Tena, 2021. "Impact of COVID-19 Home Confinement in Children’s Refractive Errors," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-12, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5347-:d:556433
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5347/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/10/5347/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giuseppina Lo Moro & Tiziana Sinigaglia & Fabrizio Bert & Armando Savatteri & Maria Rosaria Gualano & Roberta Siliquini, 2020. "Reopening Schools during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Overview and Rapid Systematic Review of Guidelines and Recommendations on Preventive Measures and the Management of Cases," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-21, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Panagis Galiatsatos & Vanya Jones & Jacqueline Bryan & Meghan Brown & Olivia Banks & Brittany Martin & Megan Collins & Catherine Ling & Mindi B. Levin & Audrey Johnson & Alicia Wilson & Annette Anders, 2023. "The Health Education and Training (HEAT) Corps: A Medical–Community Collaboration Response during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-8, January.
    2. Flavia Beccia & Andrea Di Pilla & Francesco Andrea Causio & Bruno Federico & Maria Lucia Specchia & Carlo Favaretti & Stefania Boccia & Gianfranco Damiani, 2022. "Narrative Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic’s First Two Years in Italy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-18, November.
    3. Derek G. Shendell & Juhi Aggarwal & Maryanne L. F. Campbell & Lauren N. Gonzalez & Elizabeth Kaplun & Koshy Koshy & Thomas I. Mackie, 2021. "Fall 2020 COVID-19 Needs Assessment among New Jersey Secondary School Educational Professionals," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(8), pages 1-13, April.
    4. Steimle, Lauren N. & Sun, Yuming & Johnson, Lauren & Besedeš, Tibor & Mokhtarian, Patricia & Nazzal, Dima, 2022. "Students’ preferences for returning to colleges and universities during the COVID-19 pandemic: A discrete choice experiment," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 82(PB).
    5. Lili Li & Araz Taeihagh & Si Ying Tan, 2023. "A scoping review of the impacts of COVID-19 physical distancing measures on vulnerable population groups," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-19, December.
    6. Ana Lourenço & Fernando Martins & Beatriz Pereira & Rui Mendes, 2021. "Children Are Back to School, but Is Play Still in Lockdown? Play Experiences, Social Interactions, and Children’s Quality of Life in Primary Education in the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-15, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:10:p:5347-:d:556433. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.