Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Dec 3, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 4, 2025 - Jan 29, 2026
Date Accepted: Apr 22, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The prevalence of mental health conditions in adults and children with childhood onset inflammatory ocular disease: a systematic review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Inflammatory ocular diseases (IOD) are frequently associated with multi-system autoimmune conditions and can lead to significant visual morbidity, including visual impairment and blindness. Emerging evidence suggests that inflammation contributes to the development of depression and other mental health disorders. Individuals with childhood-onset IOD may be at increased risk of poor well-being and mental health outcomes. However, the prevalence of mental health conditions in this population remains unclear.
Objective:
To review the evidence regarding the prevalence of mental health conditions amongst children and adults with childhood onset inflammatory ocular disease.
Methods:
This systematic review will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines. Eligible studies will report mental health disorder prevalence and outcomes in individuals with childhood-onset IOD, regardless of age at assessment of outcome. Studies evaluating interventions or focusing primarily on mental health effects secondary to visual impairment or blindness will be excluded. Searches will be conducted in PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, Ovid, and PsycArticles. Grey literature will be identified through Google searches. Two researchers will independently screen titles, abstracts, and full texts, extract data, and assess risk of bias using the ROBINS-E tool; disagreements will be resolved by a third reviewer. Data will be synthesised descriptively, with attention to study design, outcome measures, co-occurrence of multi-system disease, and methodological quality.
Results:
A preliminary scoping search has been completed to estimate the volume of relevant literature. Full searches will begin in November 2025. Data extraction, analysis, and synthesis will follow, using a narrative approach to summarise mental health outcomes across studies. The final review is expected to be completed by August 2026.
Conclusions:
The findings from this review will help to establish the prevalence of mental health conditions amongst people with childhood onset IOD. The results from this review will support recommendations for further research and policies to ensure the best health outcomes for children. Clinical Trial: PROSPERO registration: CRD420251182619
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Copyright
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