Awareness of the Practice and Use of Contact Lenses amongst Students of the Health Faculty at Jazan University during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: Contact lenses are medical devices which are used as an alternative to spectacles to correct problems with eyesight. Poor hygienic handling of these lenses poses an ocular health risk. Increased popularity and usage of contact lenses in combination with insufficient cleanliness results in increased bacterial infections of the eye, even resulting in blindness. Materials and Methods: We employed a quantitative cross-sectional study, where we used questionnaires to gather data. We conducted the study among students of the Health Faculty at Jazan University where we recruited 361 participants. Using the questionnaires, we assessed the use of contact lenses and the hygiene practice when handling them among the participants. To the best of our knowledge, only one study has been conducted in the Jazan region to assess contact lens awareness and practice, which can be consider as a gap of knowledge that make our study can be consider a vital observation about usage of contact lens in the Jazan region. Results: We found that 52.6% of the participants use contact lenses. Among those it is predominantly females who use contact lenses, and their motivation is primarily for cosmetic reasons. We further found that the majority of contact lens users exhibit good hygiene practices when handling contact lenses. However, there remains more than a quarter of participants for whom the hygiene practice is poor to moderately good. Conclusion: The majority of participants 172 (84.7%) had good practice level regarding wearing contact lenses. Considering the significant fraction of participants who showed inadequate hygiene practice, we recommend better information and training for those who use contact lenses. This information and training should be predominantly made available on the internet or through contact lens vendors, as these are the most common information channels among the participants.