Abstract
Purpose :
Epidemiological studies indicate that DE patients report that reading is a difficult task (odds ratios 1.5 - 4.1). In addition, studies have demonstrated that DE patients read slower than normal controls. The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between the severity of dry eye, reading rate (RR), and subjective symptoms in these patients.
Methods :
Seventeen subjects took part in this study (10 DE (age 63.2 ± 6.16) and 7 normal controls (age 61.3 ± 7.01)). All subjects had a complete eye exam with DE work up. DE patients had both subjective and objective signs of DE in compliance with the recommendations of the 2007 International Dry Eye Workshop. Symptoms were evaluated with the Schein dry eye questionnaire (DEQ). The dry eye severity was calculated as the average total corneal staining score for both eyes (range 0 – 20). The Wilkins Rate of Reading Test was used to determine reading rate.
Results :
The Pearson correlation between corneal staining and the Schein DEQ was 0.89 (p < 0.001; Schein DEQ = 1.71 + 1.22(corneal staining)), between RR and corneal staining score was -0.465 (p = 0.06; corneal staining = 31.8 – 0.165(RR)), and between the RR and the Schein DEQ was -0.305 (p = 0.234; Schein DEQ = 32.4 – 0.149(RR)).
Conclusions :
The correlation between corneal staining and the Schein DEQ was highly significant (p < 0.001). As the corneal staining increased, the Schein score increased. The correlation between RR and corneal staining was nearly significant (p = 0.06) suggesting that as the dry eye severity increases, the RR decreases. There was not a significant correlation between the Schein DEQ and RR. This study suggests that as the objective signs of DE increase, the patients subjective and functional problems increase.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.