Objective: To study the relationship between time length of digital devices usage and dry eye conditions in pterygium patients.

Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective study at Thammasat University Hospital. Consequently, information regarding demographic characteristics, characteristic and related data of pterygium, time spent on using digital devices and Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) were collected. The quantitative data was analyzed to determine the mean and relationships by using statistical tools of ANOVA, simple linear regression and Pearson correlation.

Results: In total, 328 samples were collected which comprised of 314 patients with primary pterygium (95.7 percent) and 14 of
recurrent pterygium (4.3 percent). An average of 3.73 hours was the time spent on using digital devices per day. There were 249 patients (75.91 percent) which reported a history of using digital devices. The studies revealed that time spent on digital devices had no influence on pterygium size but the duration more than or equal 2 hours per day were statistically significant affected to the OSDI scores. Relationship between the duration of the digital device usage and the eye pain (R2 = 0.026), blurred vision (R2 = 0.014) and the OSDI scores (R2 = 0.014) were found to be related in the same way.

Conclusion: Patients with pterygium were found to have the history of digital devices usage (75.91 percent). Moreover, the time spent using digital devices more than or equal 2 hours per day were statistically significant affected to the OSDI scores. The correlation between time spent using digital devices, eye pain, blurred vision, and the severity level of the OSDI scores were found to be related.

Keywords: Time length, Digital device usage, Dry eye, Pterygium