---

Assessment of dry eye in rural hospital setting, B.G. Nagara, Karnataka

---

Original Article

Author Details : Sundip Shenoy, Reagan Madan

Volume : 2, Issue : 3, Year : 2016

Article Page : 257-262

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Background: Dry eye is a common condition that is often under diagnosed. Normal vision requires moist healthy ocular surface. A sufficient quality of tears, normal composition of tears film, lid closure to maintain healthy ocular surface.
Due to lack of uniformity in definition and inability of any single diagnostic test or set of diagnostic test to confirm or rule out the condition. There has been a shift towards symptom based assessment as a key component in clinical diagnosis with grading of severity of dry eye.
Use of symptom based validated questionnaire might be beneficial as it allows grading of symptoms and is repeatable for comparative purpose before, during and after treatment. Recent advances in treatment suggests the use of lubricants, anti-inflammatory drugs, plugs to augment the tear film.
Objectives: A prospective study was conducted to assess the dry eye in rural hospital setting at B.G. Nagara Karnataka with the objective to study the frequency of occurrence of dry eye and identify risk factors, correlate dry eye status with clinical tests, demographic and disease profile and devise appropriate therapy.
Methods: A total of 63 cases were chosen from the outpatient department of Sri Adichunchanagiri Institute Of Medical Sciences and assessment of dry eye were  made by tests like Tear breakup time, Schirmer’s, Rose Bengal dye test with prior administered Ocular surface disease index (OSDI) questionnaire for subjective grading of dry eye.
Results: In our study majority 31.7% patients were in the group 41-50 years. Prevalence of overall dry eye in our study was 85.7%. Prevalence was more in females as compared to males. Risk factors associated with dry eye were identified with diabetes mellitus type II being more prevalent among them. In the study Osdi questionnaire had a good reliability and consistency (p<0.001). Pearson correlation with r value among various test like Tear breakup time, Schirmer’s, Rose Bengal dye test and OSDI score showed a good correlation.
Conclusion: Dry eye is a chronic disease and increase in prevalence of dry eye increases with age. Subjective tests like OSDI correlated well with objective tests in our study. Grading of dry eye helps in better management of dry eye and its complications.

Keywords: Dry eye; OSDI; Rose Bengal dye test, Schirmer’s test, Tear breakup time

How to cite : Shenoy S, Madan R, Assessment of dry eye in rural hospital setting, B.G. Nagara, Karnataka. Indian J Clin Exp Ophthalmol 2016;2(3):257-262

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.