Título

ASSESSMENT OF VISUAL REPERCUSSIONS DUE TO INCREASED SCREEN TIME DURING SOCIAL ISOLATION IN STUDENTS OF MEDICINE AT SANTO AMARO UNIVERSITY.

Objetivo

The isolation imposed by Covid19 with the consequent increase in screen time and/or digital devices seems to have caused an increase in cases of myopia, a condition already considered a pandemic even before the COVID-19 factor appeared, and is estimated that by 2050, half of the world's population will be myopic. To evaluate whether spending more time in front of screens has led to a worsening of visual acuity (VA), as perceived by students or confirmed by ophthalmological consultations, results obtained by questionnaires.

Método

Evaluation through questionnaires constructed by the researchers, and the results obtained by the undergraduate students of the Medicine course from the Santo Amaro University were analyzed through the Chi-square test or FISHER Exact Test and Kappa or Mcnemar study.

Resultado

After meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria, we obtained questionnaires from 93 students who were divided into two groups. In Group I we have students who reported worse vision and in Group II, those who did not notice a difference. In Group I we obtained 47 students reporting increased diopters, and in Group II only 1. In addition, we obtained 55 responses from Group I and 18 from Group II, this difference is statistically significant (p <0.0001). However, 5 students who reported worse VA did not seek medical care, and 15 who also did not go to the ophthalmologist. The main and most important proof of this study was when we analyzed the total number of students who reported a deterioration in vision with those who had their visual acuity compromised.

Conclusão

In this work we observed a statistically significant worsening of the AV during the pandemic period, which leads us to consider that the excessive use of screens may be one of the responsible for this condition.