Study on association of dry eye disease (DED) with visual display terminal (VDT) use among medical college students

To study the prevalence of Dry Eye Disease (DED) among undergraduate medical students using Visual Display Terminal (VDT). : Cross-sectional study was conducted on 444 students at Medical college Hospital in the department of Ophthalmology. All the consented study participants, after ruling out the exclusion criterion, underwent dry eye workup which included routine slit lamp examination and Tear film break up time (TBUT). In this study, TBUT ≤ 10 seconds was considered abnormal. They were asked to fill out an OSDI (Ocular Surface Disease Index) questionnaire (Allergen Inc, Irvine, Calif, USA). The participants were asked to answer questions related to VDT use. Statistical analysis was done using the SPSS software (IBM). Based on the OSDI questionnaire, clinically significant DED was found in 28.8%. DED was classified as mild DED in 17.1%, moderate DED in 6.3% and severe DED in 5.4% of the participants. Among those with DED, VDT use was 2 to 4 hours in 29% of the participants, VDT > 4 hours was seen in 32.7% of participants. Thereby, indicating that increase in VDT use had an association with increase in prevalence of DED. DED based on signs (TBUT< or = 5 sec) was observed in 86.3% of participants. : There is a statistically significant association between VDT use and DED among young students.