Purpose: To evaluate parental history of myopia as a predictor of refractive error and eye size in Chinese pre-school children.
Methods: A total of 514 pre-school children (aged 2.3--6.4 years) were examined. Parental history of myopia, amount of near work performed, refractive status and ocular biometry were recorded.
Results: There was no significant difference in spherical equivalent refraction (SER) among children with no myopic parents (mean+0.94+/-0.05 D), one myopic parent (mean+0.77+- 0.07 D) and two myopic parents (mean+0.79+/- 0.12 D) (p=0.102) after controlling for age and amount of near work. Further, children with more myopic parents did not have longer eyeballs (p=0.335).
Conclusions: In this study in Chinese pre-school children, parental history of myopia was not found to be associated with a myopic refractive error or increased eyeball length. Further studies with larger sample sizes would help to confirm these results.