Assessing the role of visual dysfunctions in the association between visual symptomatology and the use of digital devices

Pilar Cacho-Martínez; Mario Cantó-Cerdán; Francisco Lara-Lacárcel; Ángel García-Muñoz

doi:10.1016/j.optom.2023.100510

Assessing the role of visual dysfunctions in the association between visual symptomatology and the use of digital devices

J Optom. 2023 Dec 21;17(3):100510. doi: 10.1016/j.optom.2023.100510. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Pilar Cacho-Martínez¹, Mario Cantó-Cerdán², Francisco Lara-Lacárcel³, Ángel García-Muñoz²

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Óptica, Farmacología y Anatomía, Universidad de Alicante, Spain. Electronic address: cacho@ua.es.
² Departamento de Óptica, Farmacología y Anatomía, Universidad de Alicante, Spain.
³ Departamento de Oftalmología, Optometría, Otorrinolaringología y Anatomía Patológica, Universidad de Murcia, Spain.

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the association between visual symptoms and use of digital devices considering the presence of visual dysfunctions.

Methods: An optometric examination was conducted in a clinical sample of 346 patients to diagnose any type of visual anomaly. Visual symptoms were collected using the validated SQVD questionnaire. A threshold of 6 hours per day was used to quantify the effects of digital device usage and patients were divided into two groups: under and above of 35 years old. A multivariate logistic regression was employed to investigate the association between digital device use and symptoms, with visual dysfunctions considered as a confounding variable. Crude and the adjusted odds ratio (OR) were calculated for each variable.

Results: 57.02 % of the subjects reported visual symptoms, and 65.02% exhibited some form of visual dysfunction. For patients under 35 years old, an association was found between having visual symptoms and digital device use (OR = 2.10, p = 0.01). However, after adjusting for visual dysfunctions, this association disappeared (OR = 1.44, p = 0.27) and the association was instead between symptoms and refractive dysfunction (OR = 6.52, p < 0.001), accommodative (OR = 10.47, p < 0.001), binocular (OR = 6.68, p < 0.001) and accommodative plus binocular dysfunctions (OR = 46.84, p < 0.001). Among patients over 35 years old, no association was found between symptoms and the use of digital devices (OR = 1.27, p = 0.49) but there was an association between symptoms and refractive dysfunction (OR = 3.54, p = 0.001).

Conclusions: Visual symptoms are not dependent on the duration of digital device use but rather on the presence of any type of visual dysfunction: refractive, accommodative and/or binocular one, which should be diagnosed.

Keywords: Binocular vision; Digital devices; Visual dysfunctions; Visual symptoms.