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College research shows cause for concern about ready-made spectacles

5 January 2012 Return to news listings

ready_reader_imageThe results of research commissioned by the College of Optometrists shows that many ready-made spectacles are not of appropriate quality to match the advertising around them.

Following the publication of a Which? report on ready-made reading glasses in October 2010, the College commissioned Professor David Elliott at Bradford University to carry out some further research in this area based on a much larger sample size.  The original Which? report pointed to some potential issues with the quality of ready-made  spectacles, and possible discrepancies between the standards claimed by the manufacturers and those actually found in the glasses tested for their report.   Although the Which? report highlighted an issue that was of interest (and if their findings were accurate, concern) to our members and the public, the conclusions were based on a sample of 14 ready readers, which opened the findings to question. 

After assessing over 300 ready readers from a wide range of high street stores, with costs ranging from £1 to £32, Professor Elliot’s team found that: 

  • Just over half of all ready-made spectacles used in the study provided the optical standards required of them by the relevant British and European Standard.
     
  • Higher-powered ready-made spectacles were more likely to have errors (+3.50DS).
     
  • The quality of these ready-made spectacles could be easily improved by the use of more appropriate inter-pupillary distances for the work they are intended for.

The team at Bradford ran a range of tests on the spectacles.   They examined each pair’s quality in terms of:

  • how closely they met their advertised specifications
     
  • the positioning of the lenses in the frames
     
  • whether the frames positioned the lenses in such a way that the distance between the focal centres of the lenses was likely to fall within the range for average distance between pupils in the UK population.

Professor Elliott’s report on this research will be published in the research journal of the American Academy of Optometry (Optometry and Vision Science) later this year.

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