Ocular and Extraocular Symptoms among Medical Undergraduates with Cellphone Addiction, A Cross-sectional Study

Aim: To find out the frequency of ocular and extraocular symptoms due to cellphone use among the medical students.

Study Design: Cross-sectional study

Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted in private and public sector medical and dental colleges of Karachi from January 2019 to September 2019.

Methodology: Self-designed, self-explanatory questionnaire was used to collect data. The setting for the collection of the data has been classrooms, common rooms, cafeteria and open sports areas of the medical and dental colleges which has been surveyed by the different team members of the group. The data was analyzed by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.

Results: The mean age of the study participants was 21.2 ±1.82 years, among them majority was female i.e. 60.25%. Participants were having different degrees of blurred vision, eyestrain, dry eyes, eye redness and irritation, difficulty in refocusing the eyes and double vision with frequency of 17.25%, 24.25%, 9.5%, 10.75%, 9% and 5% respectively. Respondents during the survey stated that they were having different physical problems apart from disturbance in eyesight. About 39.75% respondents complained of varying degree of headache and or migraine. 36% were having pain in neck, shoulder or back while 25.25% were having variable degree of fatigue. About 21.5% complained pain in fingers and wrist, 9.5% complained of hand stiffness and their inability to grip or hold any other thing properly.

Conclusion: It has been concluded that cellphone usage has serious ocular and extraocular hazards so there is a need to limit its usage as it is affecting the physical and mental health of the students.