Vitamin D deficiency: a risk factor for myopia in children: a cross sectional study in a tertiary care centre

Objective: To study the role of vitamin D deficiency as a risk factor for myopia in children aged 5-15 years. Method: The cross-sectional observational study was conducted from January to September 2019 at the Ophthalmology and Paediatric departments of Shifa Foundation Community Health Centre, Islamabad, Pakistan, and comprised patients with suspected / symptomatic vitamin D deficiency who were enrolled from the paediatric outpatient department and referred to the ophthalmology clinics for eye exam. Apart from taking detailed ocular history, slit lamp examination, Snellen’s distance visual acuity, auto-refraction to calculate spherical equivalent, and amplitude scan for measuring the axial length were performed. An average of 3 measurements was taken for both refraction and axial length calculation. Myopia was labelled if mean spherical equivalent was 0.25 dioptres. Vitamin D deficiency was defined as serum 25 hydroxyvitamin D level