Abstract
PurposeThe aim of this study was to investigate the differences in anxiety and depression between adolescents with myopia and those with normal vision and to examine the relationship between the level of anxiety and depression and the degree of myopia.MethodsA total of 1,103 first‐year high school students aged 14–17 years were included in the study. The study group comprised 916 persons with myopia, while the control group comprised 187 persons without refractive error. Volunteers underwent routine eye examinations and completed a set of questionnaires about anxiety and depression. Then, the Self‐Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self‐Rating Depression Scale (SDS) scores were compared between groups, and the relationships between anxiety and the degree of myopia and between depression and the degree of myopia were analyzed.ResultsThere was a significant difference in anxiety rate between the students with normal vision and those with myopia. The SAS scores among students with mild, moderate, and severe myopia were also significantly different. However, compared with the students with normal vision, the rate of depression was not significantly increased in the students with myopia, except in cases of severe myopia. Additionally, the SAS scores correlated closely with the diopters of the participants’ glasses (r = 0.43, p = .045), while the relationship between SDS scores and the diopters of glasses was not significant (r = 0.19, p = .325).ConclusionThere was a correlation between myopia and mental health in adolescent students, especially in terms of anxiety.
Highlights
Myopia, a common eye disease, is one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness worldwide (Morgan et al, 2018)
Most related studies have focused on psychological health problems among adolescents with high myopia (Ayaki et al, 2016; Yokoi et al, 2014), while we assessed the rates of anxiety and depression in groups with mild, moderate, and severe myopia and compared them with those of adolescents with emmetropia in the current study
We found that the rates of depression among 14, 15, 16, and 17-year-olds were 33.3%, 36.7%, 30.8%, and 34.5%, respectively, and the corresponding rates of anxiety were 37.3%, 39.3%, 38.3%, and 35.8%, respectively, which were far higher than the 22% depression rate and 25% anxiety rate mentioned in Yokol's report (Yokoi et al, 2014)
Summary
A common eye disease, is one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness worldwide (Morgan et al, 2018). Rose et al examined 112 patients with myopia in the UK and found that the patients’ quality of life was affected by psychological and physical factors (Rose & Tullo, 1998) Psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety, often develop as comorbidities in cases of chronic and nonchronic somatic illnesses, for example, cardiac infarction, rheumatoid arthritis, and malignancies (Chandarana, Eals, Steingart, Bellamy, & Allen, 1987; Derogatis et al, 1983; Frasure-Smith & Lesperance, 2008), which have a negative impact on health-related quality of life (Andersen et al, 2010; Ferrell & Hassey 1997; Skarstein, Aass, Fossa, Skovlund, & Dahl, 2000). It was reported that 22.0%–25.9% of highly myopic patients had possible or probable depression or anxiety disorders, and the presence of those psychiatric disorders was the major factor associated with the low VR-QoL in highly myopic patients (Yokoi et al, 2014)
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