Habitual RE and headache complaints are relatively common conditions in schoolchildren aged between 11 and 13 years. Headache complaints showed a small but statistically significant association with the sphere component of habitual RE in girls and the cylinder component of habitual RE in boys. The associations found between habitual RE and headache complaints indicate that habitual RE might be a risk factor for headache in children.

ABSTRACT.Purpose: Refractive error (RE) is suggested to cause not only visual impairment, but also functional problems such as aspecific health complaints and lower levels of school achievement. During the last few decades the prevalence of myopia has increased worldwide, especially in Asia. We investigated the prevalence of habitual RE and anisometropia in a Dutch population of children and employees. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, RE in both eyes of 520 children (aged 11-13 years) and 444 hospital employees (aged 17-60 years) were measured using an autorefractometer. The measurements were performed without using a cycloplegium. Pearson's correlation coefficient (r) was used to analyse correlations between the right and left eyes. Chi-square tests were used to test the differences between subgroups according to gender and age. . Anisometropia > 1.00 D was present in 25% of employees. Anisometropia was more frequently present in employees aged 40-60 years, than in those aged 17-39 years (30% versus 18%; p = 0.02, Cramer's V = 0.15). Conclusions: Refractive errors are common in children aged 11-13 years and in working adults aged 17-60 years. Distributions of sphere and cylinder deviations are similar for Dutch schoolchildren and hospital employees. Surprisingly, anisometropia proved to be more prevalent with age. In children many eyes are not optimally corrected. Increased attention should be paid to uncorrected and miscorrected REs.