Background and Aim: Refractive errors are the most common reasons for patients' reference to ophthalmology clinics. Regarding that systemic hypertension has significant complications in the eyes this study was done to determine the relationship between refractive errors and systemic hypertension.

  Materials and Methods: This descriptive, analytical and cross-sectional study was done on patients with refractive errors who had been referred to ophthalmology clinic of Birjand Valieasr hospital in 2004. Refractive errors were objectively determined by an ophthalmologist. Systemic hypertension in the patients was measured and recorded applying standard examination procedures. Systolic pressure ≥140 mmHg/diastolic pressure ≥90 mmHg was taken as "hypertension" and refraction equal to ±0.05 was considered as refractory error. The obtained data was analyzed by means of SPSS software using statistical T, and Chi-square at the significant level of P<0.05.

  Results: This study was done on 760 patients with refractory errors whose mean age was 36.2±15.8 years. 47% of the patients were males and the rest females. Among the total number of patients, astigmatism, myopia, and hyperopia covered 59.1%, 53.4%, and 36.2% of the refractory errors respectively. 29.7% of of the patients were hypertensive. A significant difference was observed in the frequency distribution of hypertension in myopic and hyperopic cases (P<0.001), but the difference was not significant in astigmatic subjects. Besides, mean spherical equivalence of eyes in subjects with systemic hypertension and normotensive ones was significant.

  Conclusion: Regarding the high mean spherical refractive error in the subjects with systemic hypertension compared with normotensives, and also the existence of a relationship between systemic hypertension and hyperopia it could be inferred that the risk of developing systemic hypertension in hyperopic patients is more than myopic cases.