Dry Eye Disease Prevalence Is High Following COVID-19 Lockdowns

A higher dry eye disease (DED) prevalence among college students accompanied COVID-19-related lockdowns, according to research published in Clinical Optometry. Factors that increased DED risk include a lack of DED education, refractive error, systemic medication use, and not using computers in reading mode, the report shows. 

Researchers included 400 university students (age range, 18-35 years; 64.8% women) in a cross-sectional investigation to determine factors associated with symptomatic DED during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The team administered the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) to all study participants and defined DED by an OSDI score of 13 or higher.  

A total of 48% of participants reported using video display terminals an average of 10 to 15 hours per day, and 63% reported consistently performing near work on these devices for 2 to 5 hour periods. Overall, dry eye disease prevalence was 84.3% (95% CI, 80.8%-87.5%) among the cohort. 

Factors that increased DED risk include a lack of DED education (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 2.69; 95% CI, 1.41-5.13), ametropia (AOR, 3.20; 95% CI, 1.66–6.20), systemic medication use (AOR, 2.80; 95% CI, 1.15–6.81), and failure to use reading mode — a feature that applies a blue light filter or increases the warmth of the device’s screen display (AOR, 3.92; 95% CI, 1.57–9.80), and more frequent visual display unit use per day (P <.001), according to the report. 

“The use of reading mode or blue light filters is highly advisable, especially for those who worked on [visual display units] for an extended period,” according to the study authors. “Therefore, blue light filters can improve comfort; the majority of symptoms of dry eye relieves with blue light filters.” 

Study limitations include failure to use objective assessments or consider the presence of uncorrected refractive error, contact lens wear, or face mask use.