REPRODUCIBILITY AND ACCURACY OF MEASUREMENTS WITH A HAND-HELD AUTOREFRACTOR IN CHILDREN

Aim-To determine reproducibility and accuracy of the Nikon Retinomax a utorefractor when used with children who were made cycloplegic. Method s-Autorefraction and retinoscopy or subjectively refined retinoscopy ( where, under the patient's direction, the refraction was varied until the best visual acuity was achieved) were performed on the right eye o f 47 children, age 11-93 months. Autorefraction was performed using th e Nikon Retinomax, which provides up to eight measured values of refra ctive error and one representative measurement of refractive error. Re sults-Autorefractor measurements were successfully obtained from 7/9 c hildren age 3 years or younger, and from all older children. Vector me thods were used to calculate differences. Retinomax reproducibility av eraged 0.43 D. Unbiased Retinomax and retinoscopy measurements differe d by an average of 0.82 D. Unbiased Retinomax and subjectively refined retinoscopy differed by an average of 1.03 D. Conclusions-Reproducibi lity of Retinomax measured values in children is comparable with repro ducibility of retinoscopy, subjective refraction, and autorefraction m easurements in adults. Agreement between Retinomax and retinoscopy and agreement between Retino-MATERIALS max and subjective refinement in c hildren is comparable with agreement between autorefraction and subjec tive refraction in adults. The study indicates that the Retinomax is a useful instrument for measuring refractive errors in young children.