Seven students from the Department of Public Health at the College of Health Sciences in Qatar University (QU) had their research project accepted for publication in Medicine Journal during the month of September 2021. This project which is entitled “The relationship between smartphone use and dry eye disease: A systematic review with a narrative synthesis” was supervised by Dr Mujahed Shraim, Assistant Professor at the Public Health Department.

The following students contributed to this research work: Khaloud Al-Marri, Maha Al-Qashoti, Hissa Al-Zoqari, Usra Elshaikh, Alya Naqadan, Raghad Saeed, and Jameela Faraj. A systematic search of Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and PsychINFO bibliographic databases from their inception to January 15, 2021 was conducted to systematically review and synthesize evidence on the relationship between smart phone use and dry eye disease.

Moreover, study screening, full-text assessment, study selection and exclusion, data extraction, and quality assessment was performed independently by at least two review authors. Four studies were included in the review (3 cross-sectional studies and 1 non-randomized clinical trial). A narrative synthesis of findings was used due to heterogeneity among study designs and measures of association summarizing the relationship between smart phone use and dry eye disease. All included studies were conducted in South Korea and included school children, college students, or young adults. Three out of the four included studies showed an association between smart phone use and dry eye disease. The research group concluded that there is some evidence that smart phone use is associated with dry eye disease.

However, this evidence is limited by a small number of studies of satisfactory methodological quality. They also concluded that there is a great need for high quality studies to further investigate the relationship between smart phone use and dry eye disease and identify mechanisms underlying this potential relationship. This information is important for raising public awareness about the negative effect of smart phone use on eye health and development of clinical guidelines for this potentially emerging smart phone use-driven eye condition.

Source: Qatar University