Normative Data for Parameters of Accommodation in African Schoolchildren

The reported interracial differences in normative data for parameters of accommodation call for investigating population-specific normative values. The study investigated and presents expected data for accommodative parameters among Ghanaian children.

This study aimed to determine expected values for parameters of accommodation among schoolchildren in the Central Region of Ghana.

This prospective cross-sectional study used a multistage cluster sampling approach. Normal participants were asymptomatic (Convergence Insufficiency Symptom Survey score ˂16), with unaided visual acuity or best-corrected visual acuity of 0.0 or better logMAR for each eye and having no ocular disease or no manifest strabismus. Normal participants underwent push-up and minus-lens-to-blur amplitude of accommodation tests, accuracy of accommodative response (using the monocular estimation method), and monocular and binocular accommodative facility testing.

A total of 1261 normal participants within ages 11 to 17 years (mean, 14.75 ± 1.53 years) met the inclusion criteria. The mean normative data for the population include push-up amplitude of accommodation (14.04 ± 2.95 D), minus-lens-to-blur amplitude of accommodation (12.33 ± 2.55 D), and accuracy of accommodative response using the monocular estimation method (0.62 ± 0.22 D), monocular accommodative facility (9.80 ± 3.20 cycles per minute), and binocular accommodative facility (9.40 ± 3.30 cycles per minute). Age-predicted linear regression equations for the amplitude of accommodation are push-up amplitude of accommodation (16.74 - 0.18 × age in years) and minus-lens-to-blur amplitude of accommodation (15.7 - 0.23 × age in years).

The study provides normative data for accommodative parameters that clinicians may use with Ghanaian populations of similar ages.