Survey results show need to educate parents on eye care, myopia
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Results from two surveys indicate that parents’ knowledge of myopia and the importance of comprehensive exams for their children is lacking.
In a survey from the Global Myopia Awareness Coalition (GMAC) parents ranked annual visits to the eye doctor as less important than visits to the dentist or pediatrician, and results from a Harris Poll show that only 33% of parents know what myopia is and the affect it has on eyesight.
The Harris Poll, which was commissioned by CooperVision, was conducted among 313 U.S. eye care professionals and more than 1,000 U.S. parents with children between 8 and 15 years old regarding their knowledge of myopia.
“My practice has seen an increasing number of children with progressive myopia in the last decade. Each time we diagnose a child, parents are often surprised and sometimes worried. I’m not surprised that nearly half of parents said they know less about their child’s eye health than they should,” Katherine Scheutz, OD, at Little Eyes Pediatric Care and RevolutionEyes, said in a press release from CooperVision.
According to the release, 66% of eye care professionals have seen a 25% increase in the prevalence of pediatric myopia in their practice over the last 5 to 10 years. About 26% of parents have a nearsighted child, and about three-fourths of those children were diagnosed between the ages of 3 and 12 years.
“We know there is a lot of confusion about the significance of myopia, how it progresses and how to treat it,” Michele Andrews, OD, senior director, North America professional and academic affairs at CooperVision, said in the release. “It comes as no surprise that while 65% of parents claimed they were somewhat or very knowledgeable of myopia, only one in three were able to identify myopia as nearsightedness. There clearly needs to be more education about what childhood myopia is and why it is important to diagnose it early.”
The GMAC survey, which was conducted online by Dynata, collected 4,004 responses from parents.
Results indicated that while 85% of parents said they were at least somewhat familiar with comprehensive eye exams, 88% believed they are not necessary until their children enter school, and 48% believed that a pediatrician could conduct them, according to a press release from GMAC.
More than half of parents reported waiting until a problem becomes obvious, such as the child not being able to see the board in school or observing them squint or hold materials far away in order to see them.