Effect of Blink Rate among Visual Display Terminal and NonVisual Display Terminal User.

The digital technology has become a necessity and is integrated into our daily activities. This ever increasing use of visual display terminal (VDT) has led to an increase in eye-related symptoms. Dry eye disease (DED) is frequently encountered problem among VDT users. Not just the adults, but it is becoming common among children as well especially when they have reduced amount of outdoor activities. Dry eye occurs can happen due to inadequate amount of tears or poor quality of tears due to reduced blink rate. Subjects on digital device users are often found to have symptoms but with little evidence to compare with non-visual display terminal users. A total of 288 subjects were recruited in the study. Of which 144 were VDT and 144 were non-VDT users. The mean age of VDT and non-VDT users were 27.72±4.88 years (Male= 102, Female = 42) and 25.96±5.43 years (Male=77, Female=67), respectively. Blink rate of VDT and non-VDT users were recorded. All the subjects were given Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) questionnaire to record their symptomatic score for dry eye. Data were collated and analysed on SPSSv21 and correlation analysis was performed between VDT users and non-VDT users using paired sample test. P-value<0.05 and confidence interval (CI) of 95% was considered statistically significant. 82.64% of VDT users were found to have affected blink rate. Mean blink rate in VDT and non-VDT users were found to be 5.88±4.88 and 11.12±7.84 respectively (P = 0.01). Risk of blink rate getting affected due to VDT use were found to be higher than non-VDT (OR=3.02; 95% CI (1.75-5.22), p =0.001). Statistical significant differences were found in blink rate of VDT and non-VDT users of different age group (p<0.05). Prevalence of dry eye was found out to be 44.44 % as per OSDI score. It also shows that male were more symptomatic for dry eye compared to female in both the groups of VDT and non-VDT. VDT users were found to have reduced blink rate and were found to be more symptomatic for dry eye. Therefore, a quick and non-invasive description may be a useful aid to the diagnosis and prevention of further chronic ocular problems [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]