Effect of Spectacle Distribution to Myopic Secondary School Students in Rural Communities of Liaoning Province on Communities Academic High School Enrolment

He Eye Hospital

Status: Not yet enrolling

Conditions: Myopia

Treatments: Device: free spectacles

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06714994

SWISH

Details and patient eligibility

About

To determine whether provision of free spectacles to rural-dwelling Chinese secondary school students with visually-significant refractive error, together with a teacher-based incentive to promote their use, increases the proportion of children going on to academic high school, as opposed to dropping out or pursuing a vocational track.

Full description

The investigators propose in the current trial to significantly expand the evidence base for spectacle distribution as the most-effective health intervention to improve educational opportunities for China's under-served rural children and adolescents by assessing impact on school attainment.

Enrollment: 1,980 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 11 to 16 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Year 1 students (about 12-15 years old) from schools in county-level cities and below in Liaoning Province
• Uncorrected (self-glasses) visual acuity of ≤6/12 in both eyes
• Refractive error meets cut-offs shown to be associated with significantly greater improvement in visual acuity when corrected7 (myopia ≤-0.75 diopters (D, or astigmatism (non-spherical refractive error) ≥1.00 D
• Best corrected visual acuity ≥6/7.5 in either eye

Exclusion criteria

• Hyperopia ≥2.00 D
• Presence of visually-significant ocular condition besides refractive error

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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1,980 participants in 2 patient groups

Study group

Experimental group

Description:

Children at Intervention schools will receive free spectacles of a design they select, based on the child's measured refractive power and dispensed at school by the teacher. All students will be advised to wear glasses as much as possible during the study to ensure clear vision.

Treatment:

Device: free spectacles

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

Children at Control schools will receive a glasses prescription and letter to the parents informing them of the refractive status of their child, with free glasses provided only at the end of the trial. Service offered to the Control group exceeds standard care, in that no school-based programs of vision screening and refraction currently exist in the study area, or in most of rural China.