Covid 19 and Ophthalmic Morbidity among College Students Attending Online Teaching

Abstract

Due to ongoing pandemic, majority of the academic teaching is executed on online platforms, leading
to extended screen time. Anecdotal evidence suggests long-term ophthalmic impact of extended screen
time. Present study was carried out to document eye related problems amongst adult university/college
students undertaking online classes to document the effects of online teaching. An online survey method was
undertaken in the month of July, 2020 amongst university/ college students of Gujarat using google form.
All possible social media platforms were used to collect the data from students of Gujarat. Epi Info and
SPSS were used and both descriptive and inferential analysis was performed. A total of 620 students from
the various streams participated in the study where around 56.5% were female respondents. The majority
of students (88% of participants) had noticed eye problems out of that 39.1% of participants felt that online
teaching as a reason. Headache (54.0%) was the most common problem experienced by the participants
followed by Pain in eyes (34%) and Watering (26.3%). To conclude online teaching has led to increased
eye strain and other eye-related problems in university/college going students and risk factors for severity
included sessions attended per day, the distance at device kept, and the enjoyment level. In spite of the high
incidence of ophthalmic issues, none of the respondents contacted any ophthalmologist for the same.