Effects of Overuse of Phones and Other Smart Devices on Blepharitis and Dry Eye

Abstract

Dry eye is a multifactorial disease; that is, there may be many causative factors. In this study, it was identified the Effects of overuse of phones and other smart devices on Blepharitis and dry eye. In this research, a cross-sectional demographic study was conducted to the Iraqi population to find out the effect of smartphone devices on dry eyes; where 90 patients were collected from several different hospitals, and demographic information and data related to patients were collected through the distribution of a questionnaire containing a set of questions between the year 2019 -2020 and the patients’ ages ranged from 20 to 30 years. The assessment of the severity of dry eyes was based on the Schirmer I test from the insertion of the end of a tape 5 mm wide and 30 mm long. The cut-off points of the Schirmer I test is between 5 and 15 mm and using 5 mm as the cut-off standard, sensitivity, and specificity of 100% for this test have been described. The results which found in this study (90 patients collected with age between 20-30 years distributed to 60 patients’ male and 30 patients’ females, The amount of time the patient spent on the phone were 3 hours to 6 hours for ten patients with 11.11% and from 6 hours to 10 Hours for 20 patients with 22.22% and 21 patients with 23.3% for more than 10 hours). Statistical analysis program was used to find out the type of statistical relationship emerging between the time spent using smartphones and dry eyes, where person correlation was used at a statistical significance level at p-value <0.001. In this study, it was found that there is a direct relationship between the Time spent using a phone with dry eyes. Logistic analysis was also used to find out the factors that were more dangerous to dry eye. It was found that Hours of phone use and Distance to Monitor from the eye.

Keywords

Eye, Schirmer, Blepharitis, phone, disease, Dry