Visits to optometrists or ophthalmologists by U.S. school-aged children with autism: Estimates from the 2022-2023 National Survey of Children's Health.

Abstract

Purpose: To examine the prevalence and predictors of visits to optometrists or ophthalmologists among U.S. school-aged children with autism.

Methods: This study used parent-reported data on children ages 6-17 years residing in U.S. households from the 2022-2023 survey years of the National Survey of Children's Health (n = 68,000). After exclusions for missing data, there were 63,659 children in the full sample and 2653 children in the autism sample. Parents reported whether their child had visited an optometrist or ophthalmologist during the past 2 years. The weighted prevalence of optometrist or ophthalmologist visits was calculated for the autism sample and for the full sample for comparison. Using the autism sample, weighted descriptive statistics and logistic regression models were estimated to examine the associations between visits to an optometrist or ophthalmologist and explanatory variables measuring sociodemographic and contextual characteristics.

Results: 56.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 52.5%-60.6%) of the weighted autism sample and 52.6% (95% CI 51.8%-53.4%) of the weighted full sample had visited an optometrist or ophthalmologist in the previous 2 years. Key policy-relevant findings from the regression models are that the likelihood of having visited an optometrist or ophthalmologist was significantly higher for children who had a usual place for preventive care and whose parents had received help coordinating the child's health care, and was substantially and significantly higher for children who had had their vision screened in a primary care, school, or community setting and received a recommendation to follow up with an optometrist or ophthalmologist.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that public health efforts should be focused on revising vision screening guidelines to recommend the referral of all school-aged children with autism to an optometrist or ophthalmologist because these revisions would be likely to lead to a considerable increase in the receipt of regular eye care among children with autism.