Abstract

FERNANDEZ GONZALEZ, María Emilia; GARCIA ALCOLEA, Eglis E  and  MARTIN TORRES, Niurkis. Computer vision syndrome observed in high school students. Rev Cubana Oftalmol [online]. 2010, vol.23, suppl.2, pp. 749-757. ISSN 0864-2176.

OBJECTIVE: To characterize the clinical and epidemiological behavior of the computer vision syndrome in 10^thgrade students from «Rafael María de Mendive» high school in the period of September 2007 to June 2008 METHODS: A cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted in which the universe of study was made up of all students of this educational level, who presented with clinical features derived from the computer use (183 patients).The final sample comprised 45 students selected on the basis of simple randomized sampling (1 out of 4). There were taken into consideration some variables: age groups, sex, clinical features, use of glasses, length of time spent in computer work, visual rest period per working hour and visual evolution after 3 months of treatment. RESULTS: Females predominated (68,9%) aged 16.5 years as average and the most relevant symptoms were headache (82,2%) and eyestrain (75.5%). Patients who wore glasses and worked over 4 hours at computer showed the above-mentioned visual symptoms; additionally, myopia within the ametropies (70%) and the visual resting lasting 15-20 minutes improved this set of symptoms (51,2%). CONCLUSIONS: Computer vision syndrome is a real health problem in our environment; therefore, it is important to making an early diagnosis of this entity due to its negative effects in teenagers, the school and the family.

Keywords : Computer vision syndrome; personal computer syndrome; clinical features.

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