B4363 - Longitudinal mental health outcomes for people with childhood eye disease - 28/06/2023

B number: 
B4363
Principal applicant name: 
Nic Timpson | University of Bristol (UK)
Co-applicants: 
Daniel Osborne, Cathy Williams
Title of project: 
Longitudinal mental health outcomes for people with childhood eye disease
Proposal summary: 

Children with squint may be more likely to have depression in their teenage years. We do not know why this happens but think it could be:-

-because children with squint are treated differently by others, or
-because children with squint are different to others in some way (for example, they may be more likely to have autism).

A sample of 7,825 children taking part in the ALSPAC study had their eyes tested for squint when they were 7 years old. In addition, the participants have completed a variety of tests for depression throughout their adolescent, and young-adult lives.
Our study is going to use these data to:

a) Find out if childhood squint is associated with adolescent mental health conditions.
b) Explore other associations with squint and identify possible causes of the association.

We will do this by looking at all the children who had their eyes tested at age 7 years and compare the adolescent depression scores of those that had squint to those that did not.

Impact of research: 
We aim to publish this work in a high-impact journal(s) including those interest in paediatric ophthalmology and orthoptics, adolescent mental health, and longitudinal analysis methodology. Furthermore, we plan to use results to engage the population of patients and their parents and carers with the outputs and include them in the dissemination of outputs.
Date proposal received: 
Wednesday, 21 June, 2023
Date proposal approved: 
Wednesday, 28 June, 2023
Keywords: 
Epidemiology