Effectiveness of Smart Phone App for Selfassessment of Dry Eyes in Smartphone Users

Purpose: Smart phone App (Dry Eye Relief) effectiveness for detection of Dry Eyes and selfmonitoring of dry eyes in smartphone users. Methods: 250 cases with age group of 18-35 years of age having access and comfort for using smart phones underwent Schirmer’s test, TBUT, OSDI score test, along with a battery of tests performed using the App to assess the blink rate, blink interval and subjective comfort with details on lifestyle, screen time and contact lens use. We compare manual OSDI with App’s OSDI and classify the persons to mild, moderate and severe dry eyes. The clinical test to diagnosed dry eyes are compared with digital tests offered by the smartphone app. Results: Our study has maximum persons in age group of 18-22 years with no sex predisposition. On comparison of our OSDI and App score, both are equal (Pearson’s correlation) in diagnosing dry eyes but patient satisfaction rate, ease of understanding and less time consuming was noted in App Score (0.873). We found a negative correlation between TBUT with blink rate (-0.830) but no correlation between blink interval (0.087) to TBUT. Also with Schirmer’s test we found a negative correlation with blink rate (-0.853) but no correlation between blink interval (0.082). Though TBUT (0.006) and Schirmer’s (0.1) lack of positive correlation with subjective discomfort, interestingly we found that patients with dry eye can stare more at the screen than people with no dry eyes. Conclusion: The smartphone app is effective means for screening of dry eyes by self-assessment and keep track on its progression in techsavy population as they have more vulnerable for dry eye and they are comfortable using such apps. But, still there is need to standardize protocol and criteria for diagnosis of dry eye. It is free, handy, easy to use and automated reporting for user understanding. Financial disclosures: No financial interests to be disclosed.