Clinical exploration based on cost analysis: costs among different screening methods for myopia in school-aged children / 中华医学科研管理杂志

ABSTRACT

To explore an easily executive and conveniently generalized method with effectiveness and low costing for myopia screening at the early stage.Research was performed to testify the reasonability of using axial length/corneal radius (AL/CR) for myopia screening in children by comparing the cost between AL/CR plus vision acuity (VA) and simple VA examination.Chinese school-aged children in Yangfang school district,Beijing (n=1427,aged 6～12 years old) were randomly grouped for either pure VA examination or for VA plus AL/CR examination.Those suspicious myopic children were informed for further refractive examination.Finally,the cost from screening to definite diagnosis of refractive error was calculated.Generally,compared with VA examination,the total cost was reduced by 15.12％ and by 12.34％,respectively,in the elder group using VA plus AL/CR examination.VA plus AL/CR examination is an economical and reasonable method for screening suspicious myopia in Chinese school-aged children compared with pure VA examination.