Syed Barkat Islam, Midhet Nasim, Mutahir Shah, Rabia Sharif, Muhammad Rashid, Saad Alam Khan.
Screen time and Refractive error: an Inevitable Nuisance.
Al-Shifa J Ophthalmol Jan ;16(2):78-85.

Objectives: The study aimed at determining relationship of different refractive error with screen exposure time in paediatric population. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in 2019 for four months on all children with age of 4-16 years and correctable refractive error and a sample was selected by non random consecutive sampling. Final refractive error was determined after complete objective and subjective refraction. Daily screen exposure time (hours) was determined by asking the patients about average hours/day for which the child was having screen exposure. For inferential analysis, independent samples t-test and one-way independent samples ANOVA was applied. Results: On average, study participants had a daily screen exposure time of 2.6 +- 1.4 hours. Participants with myopia had higher screen exposure time (2.7 hours) than hypermetopic patients (2.2 hours) and results were statistically significant (p-value= 0.01). Independent samples ANOVA showed that individuals with oblique astigmatism had higher screen exposure time (2.8 hours) than with the rule (2.7) and against the rule astigmatism (1.6) and statistical significance was achieved (p-value= <0.01). Conclusion: It is concluded that there is a relationship between screen exposure time and different types of refractive error. Further long term studies are required to explain this association.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com