More spectacle wear, less contact lens wear seen during pandemic
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BOSTON – Screen time increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, as did daily spectacle wear; however, daily contact lens wear decreased, according to a study presented here at the American Academy of Optometry meeting.
Eric Rueff, OD, PhD, FAAO, and Elaine Chen, OD, FAAO, evaluated survey results from 133 faculty, staff and students at Marshall B. Ketchum University in January 2021 to determine how their vision correction habits changed during the pandemic.
Mean age was 33.6 years, and 78.2% of the participants were female. Just more than half were contact lens wearers.
Respondents said mean digital screen time increased by 2.9 hours per day, spectacle wear time increased 1.1 hours per day and 0.3 days per week, and contact lens wear decreased by 1 day per week, with no significant changes in hours per day.
Chen told Healio, “Interestingly, they still wore contact lenses the entire day. We thought maybe people would wear contact lenses more because of fogging or less because of fear of infection.
“We thought refractive error would dictate whether they stayed in contact lenses more, but it didn’t correlate,” she added.
The researchers found that increased screen time was associated with increased spectacle wear time and decreased contact lens wear time.
Chen added that dry eye symptoms did not seem to change.
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Rueff E, Chen E. Vision correction habits after COVID-19 in spectacle and contact lens wearers. Presented at: American Academy of Optometry annual meeting; Nov. 2-6, 2021; Boston.
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