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Contact lens comfort, dryness affected by time worn
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Researchers found that the length of time wearing contact lenses and not the time of day the lenses are worn affect comfort and dryness, according to a recently published study.
“The magnitudes of the discomfort and dryness sensations experienced at the end of a period of contact lens wear are not related to the absolute time of day at which that wear takes place and, therefore, are not simply a result of general physical fatigue,” Eric Papas, PhD, FAAO, and colleagues wrote in their study in Optometry and Vision Science. “These findings support previous work suggesting that end-of-day discomfort increases as a function of the length of time the lens is on the eye and is not related to the time of day at which lenses are worn.”
Papas and colleagues divided patients’ contact lens wear into five groups based on time and length of wear. Patients in stage A wore no contact lenses; in stage B, patients wore contacts continuously for 12 hours, and in stage C to stage E, the patients wore contact lenses in different 4-hour phases over a 12-hour period. Patients were examined every 2 hours, according to the study.
In stage A, patient ocular comfort and dryness was constant through a 12-hour period. The comfort and dryness levels for patients in stage B significantly decreased compared with patients in stage A at all time periods, and comfort and dryness significantly decreased after 8 hours of wear compared with when they initially began wearing the lenses.
The researchers found no significant differences in comfort among stage C, stage D and stage E regarding comfort or dryness at any 4-hour phase. However, they noted a trend of increased scores for the first 2 hours of wear before decreasing at 4 hours. – by Jeffrey Craven
Disclosure: This study was sponsored by CIBA Vision, the Brien Holden Vision Institute and the Vision Cooperative Research Centre.
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