Abstract
Purpose :
The ubiquitous amount of electronic devices and their frequent use throughout the day may very well impact the symptomatology of patients especially with a less stable pre-lens tear film in the contact lens wearing population compared to the tear film of a non-contact lens wearer. This study attempted to study the relationship between device use and contact lens symptoms.
Methods :
A simple two page customized electronic device survey paired with the OSDI and SPEED questionnaires were administered to subjects at 7 clinical sites.
Results :
This contact lens cohort (n = 243) had an average age of 36.43 +/- 14.40. When comparing the younger than 45 and older than 45 years of age groups, the number of devices used (2.7 vs 2.6) were the same (p = 0.52). Eye dryness at the beginning of the day and after device use were also similar (p = 0.58, p = 0.22). What was significant was that the younger cohort looked at their phones more times in an hour than the older cohort at 8.08 +/- 5.68 times compared to 3.66 +/- 3.91 times (p < 0.0001). Lastly, as an entire contact lens cohort, comfortable wear time was 2.25 hours shorter than total wear time (p < 0.0001) and was inversely correlated with OSDI (-0.27, p < 0.0001) more than SPEED (-0.15, p = 0.011). There was a stronger inverse correlation of comfortable wear time to OSDI in the older group (-0.41, p < 0.0001) compared to the younger group (-0.22, p = 0.0003).
Conclusions :
Our findings are consistent with prior studies on comfortable wear time being two hours shorter than total wear time. Digital device use may modify the symptom status of younger individuals differently than older individuals as hormonal or autoimmune risk factors manifest with increasing age. Contact lens wear further potentiates dry eye symptoms.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.