Purpose: To find out whether the development of myopia is related to the level of education.
Materials and methods: From two big ophthalmic outpatient clinics in Jordan, 968 subjects (between the age of 24 and 45 years) were included in this study. A subject was considered myopic if at least one eye had a spherical equivalent refractive error of at least -0.75 diopter. The subjects were divided into two groups: the educated group was those who had finished at least 12 years of education and the non-educated which included those with maximum of six years of education. There were 468 men and 500 women.
Results: The frequency of myopia was higher in the educated group in both men and women. A significant relationship was found between the level of education and myopia in the whole study group (p<0.0001).
Conclusions: This study had too few subjects to draw general conclusions, but within the study group there was a significant relationship between the level of education and the development of myopia.