Girls' Overall Self-Worth Improves With Contact Lens Wear, Study Shows
June 25 2009 - 7:17AM
PR Newswire (US)
While both boys and girls experience value-added benefits beyond
vision correction, girls experience stronger boost in self esteem
with switch to contacts from glasses JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 25
/PRNewswire/ -- Contact lenses improve the overall self-worth of
girls, according to data drawn from a three-year multi-site study
assessing the effects of glasses and contact lenses on the
self-perception of nearsighted children ages eight to 11 years. The
research, a unique collaboration between psychology and optometry,
further demonstrates the value-added benefits of contact lens wear
beyond vision correction. "Girls are particularly vulnerable to
social and psychological distress during the transitional years of
early and middle adolescence and this data suggests that for girls,
in particular, a switch from glasses to contact lenses may result
in an improvement in self-perception," according to Mitchell J.
Prinstein, Ph.D., Professor and Director of Clinical Psychology,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and co-author of the
Adolescent and Child Health Initiative to Encourage Vision
Empowerment (ACHIEVE) Study. "Research shows that compared with
boys of the same age, adolescent girls suffer from low self-esteem.
Youth who wear glasses are especially susceptible to a low sense of
self-perception," Dr. Prinstein told attendees during a recent
meeting of the Society for Behavioral Medicine. "This study
demonstrates that an intervention as simple as switching youths'
glasses to contact lenses can help boost girls' sense of self-worth
and self-efficacy during this stage of their development." A total
of 484 eight-to 11-year-old nearsighted children (59% female)
participated in the ACHIEVE study, the largest randomized trial of
its kind. In the study, conducted from September 2003 to October
2007 at five clinical centers in the United States, children were
randomly assigned to wear spectacles (n=237) or contact lenses
(n=247) for three years. Researchers measured outcomes using the
Self-Perception Profile for Children scale, a measurement tool
employed in numerous studies in the development psychology and
social development literature. The scale consists of five
domain-specific sub-scales (Scholastic Competence, Social
Acceptance, Athletic Competence, Physical Appearance, Behavioral
Conduct) and one global measure of self-worth. Because it was
expected that wearing spectacles might exacerbate unique
vulnerabilities among girls, gender was examined as a moderator of
results. Change in Global Self-Worth was statistically significant
over three years for both treatment groups, but the change was not
significantly different between contact lens wearers and spectacle
wearers except among girls who at baseline reported low levels of
satisfaction with spectacles. "Contact lenses provide collateral
benefits to children beyond simply correcting their vision," says
Jeffrey J. Walline, O.D, Ph.D., Ohio State University College of
Optometry and leader of the ACHIEVE study. "Contact lenses
significantly improve how children feel about their physical
appearance, acceptance among friends, and ability to play sports.
Contact lenses even make children more confident about their
academic performance if they initially dislike wearing glasses."
Both doctors advise parents and eye care practitioners to look
beyond the visual benefits of contact lens wear when choosing the
most appropriate vision correction modality for children requiring
vision correction. The ACHIEVE study was supported by funding from
Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. and The Vision Care
Institute(TM), LLC, a Johnson & Johnson Company. DATASOURCE:
VISTAKON, Division of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.
CONTACT: Gary Esterow of VISTAKON(R), +1-904-629-6232, , or Melissa
Barredo, Rpr Marketing Communications, +1-212-317-1462, Web Site:
http://www.jnjvision.com/
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