Effect of surgical face mask wearing on tear film in women with a high body mass index

Mana A Alanazi; Gamal A El-Hiti; Reem Alotaibi; Mashaaer A Baashen; Muteb Alanazi; Raied Fagehi; Ali M Masmali

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0277803

Effect of surgical face mask wearing on tear film in women with a high body mass index

PLoS One. 2022 Nov 16;17(11):e0277803. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0277803. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Mana A Alanazi¹, Gamal A El-Hiti¹, Reem Alotaibi¹, Mashaaer A Baashen¹, Muteb Alanazi¹, Raied Fagehi¹, Ali M Masmali¹

Affiliation

¹ Cornea Research Chair, Department of Optometry, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Purpose: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing a face mask has become an essential measure to reduce the rate of virus spreading. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of wearing a surgical face mask for a short period on the tear film parameters in subjects with a high body mass index (BMI).

Methods: Twenty-five females with a high BMI (31.4 ± 5.5 kg/m2) aged 18-35 years (22.7 ± 4.6 years) participated in the study. In addition, a control group consisting of 25 females (23.0 ± 6.7 years) with a high BMI (29.9 ± 4.1 kg/m2) participated in the study in which no mask was worn. The standardized patient evaluation of eye dryness (SPEED) questionnaire was completed first, followed by the phenol red thread (PRT) and tear ferning (TF) tests, before wearing the face mask. The subjects wore the face mask for 1 hour, and the measurements were performed again immediately after its removal. For the control group, the measurements were performed twice with one hour gap.

Results: Significant (Wilcoxon test, p < 0.05) differences were found between the SPEED scores (p = 0.035) and the PRT measurement (p = 0.042), before and after wearing the surgical face mask. The PRT scores have improved after wearing the surgical face mask, while the dry eye symptoms detected by the SPEED questionnaire have increased. On the other hand, no significant (Wilcoxon test, p = 0.201) differences were found between the TF grades before and after wearing a surgical face mask. For the control group, no significant (Wilcoxon test, p > 0.05) differences were found between the two scores from the SPEED questionnaire and the PRT, and TF tests.

Conclusions: Wearing a surgical face mask for a short duration leads to a change in volume and quality of tears as well as dry eye symptoms in women with a high BMI.

Copyright: © 2022 Alanazi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Body Mass Index
COVID-19*
Dry Eye Syndromes* / diagnosis
Dry Eye Syndromes* / etiology
Female
Humans
Lacerations*
Masks
Pandemics
Phenolsulfonphthalein

Substances

Phenolsulfonphthalein

Grants and funding

The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud University for funding through the Vice Deanship of Scientific Research Chairs, Research Chair of Cornea. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.