ABSTRACT: Purpose To examine (1) reproducibility of cycloplegic retinoscopy (C‐RNS), cycloplegic autorefraction (C‐Autoref), and noncycloplegic autorefraction (NC‐Autoref), and (2) validity of C‐Autoref and NC‐Autoref compared with C‐RNS in preschoolers with astigmatism. Methods Subjects were 36 Native American preschoolers. Three measurements of right eye refractive error were obtained with each of three methods: C‐RNS (by three different retinoscopists), C‐Autoref, and NC‐Autoref (Nikon Retinomax K+). Vector methods (vector dioptric distance, VDD) were used in the analyses. Results Mean reproducibility was 0.41 D (SD = 0.18) for C‐RNS, 0.25 D (SD = 0.17) for C‐Autoref, and 0.37 D (SD = 0.21) for NC‐Autoref. Mean agreement between C‐Autoref and C‐RNS ranged from 0.51 to 0.61 VDD (SD = 0.24 to 0.35), and ranged from 1.66 to 1.74 VDD (SD = 1.11 to 1.25) for agreement between NC‐Autoref and C‐RNS. Mean bias was −0.07 +0.21 × 149 and −1.33 +0.34 × 178 for C‐Autoref and NC‐Autoref, respectively. Conclusions C‐Autoref provided reliable and valid measurements of refractive error in young children. NC‐Autoref measurements were reliable within subjects, but there was large variability in validity among subjects.
Harvey et al. (Wed,) studied this question.