The manifest (dry) and cycloplegic refractions of 50 eyes of 25 patients aged 8 to 28 years were studied on the Nikon Auto Refractometer NR-1000F (AR) and compared with the results of clinical refraction (CR) under homatropine and the final clinical acceptance on postmydriatic testing. Only patients in the younger age groups with low to moderate refractive errors were included in this study; high myopes and hypermetropes and patients with aphakia and mixed astigmatism were excluded. The degree of agreement for spherical equivalents, sphere components, and cylinder components was analysed separately for both cycloplegic and manifest refractions on the AR and CR. The results showed that the fixation target in the NR-1000F induces significant instrument myopia during manifest refraction in the younger patients with lower refractive errors. We recommend that caution should be exercised in interpreting manifest refractions on the AR, especially in younger patients. A cycloplegic automatic refraction would be acceptably accurate.

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