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A Study to Assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on Digital eye strain prevention and Awareness among Undergraduate Medical Students in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Chennai, Tamil Nadu

Author(s):

Uppili Venkat Ragavan*, Kamali R, Dharaneswari H and Sairam S

The pandemic has made long distance learning a necessary intervention and has had students glued to their screens for hours on end. Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS)' defined by The American Optometric Association. Blue light, emitted from manmade sources like LED screens, is believed to be one of the leading causes of digital eye strain. Eye strain is often associated with symptoms such as eye fatigue, eye strain, pain in and around the eye, blurred vision, headaches and even diplopia (double vision). Asthenopia and dry eye are the core symptoms of CVS. Adding to this is the adoption of bad posture and usage of procrustean furniture. So we have taken 200 medical college students randomly in that 113 females and 87 males out of this 200 students 42% had visual problems diagnosed before 2020, Before covid 58% of the students had no visual problems and only 42% had problems with vision. Among the 42% myopia and astigmatism contributed to the maximum of 8 percentage and hypermetropia contributing to the least that was 1% percentage. Against this the present scenario was a striking increase by 125.3 % with 55% needed visual correction. The study also brings you to the attention that many needed the change of lens in the pandemic and it was more than 25% of spectale using population.Before the pandemic, 39 students (20%) spent more than 6h with their screens, which is a stark contrast to 178 students (90%) who spent more than 6h on their screens during the pandemic. The data clearly shows a gross increase in the average screen time after the pandemic, almost doubling in duration. The most frequent symptom associated with screen time was found to be headache (29 people claimed they always developed headaches, while 57 people claimed to develop headaches occasionally), followed by tearing of eye (12 people claimed they always developed tearing, while 91 people claimed to develop tearing occasionally). The most intense symptom suffered by the participants was headache (32 responses) followed by dryness of eye (20 responses). Colored halos and diplopia was least when it comes to intensity of symptoms but could not be ignored. Our recommendation are reduction in usage of screen time and usage of blue filter, E book, Post covid eye camp mainly for students and students should be thought about the 2020 rule.


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Annals of Medical and Health Sciences Research The Annals of Medical and Health Sciences Research is a bi-monthly multidisciplinary medical journal.
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