Epidemiological fight against the COVID-19 pandemic: Impact of social measures on IVS

Abstract

The epidemiological fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has included social measures such as confinement and the closure of work and academic activities. As a consequence, tasks that were carried out in the face-to-face context had to be carried out from homes, adopting strategies such as teleworking and virtual education, requiring the use of tools such as computers and laptops. Hence, people have increased exposure to the screens of electronic devices, such as computers and laptops, resulting in effects on people's visual health such as computer vision syndrome (SVI). A cross-sectional study was carried out in order to determine the affectation by SVI in the Peruvian population and its relationship with prolonged exposure to DEV, generated as a result of social measures to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. The average time in which the subjects in our study used DEV within homes increased by 120%, that is, 4.26 ± 2.36 additional daily hours when compared to the year before the COVID-19 pandemic. The massive adoption of activities such as teleworking and virtual education could explain the fact that groups of employees / employers and students were the largest users of DEV, with 10.41 and 9.32 hours per day. According to the findings obtained, it is statistically valid to affirm that the social measures to face the COVID-19 pandemic induced an increase in the prevalence of SVI in the Peruvian population (p <0.001). In the current investigation, the proportion of individuals who manifested SVI went from 38 to 64%, before and during the application of the measures, respectively.