Use of Electronic Devices and Visual Consequences in Children and Adolescents During Confinement due to the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: With the growing use of electronic devices by children, there have been questions concerning its deleterious effects on emmetropization process. The social confinement motivated by SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has triggered children of scholar age to spend more time using screens. This report aims to characterize the use of electronic devices in this population and evaluate its impact on ophthalmologic symptoms during the confinement.

Material and Methods: Observational and retrospective study through the application of an online questionnaire elaborated by the investigators. The targeted population was children with 6 to 16 years of age, living in urban areas correspondent to the workplace of the investigators. Statistical analysis was processed in Excel and SPSS (v25). 

Results: Four hundred seventeen responses were included. Before the social confinement, 57.1% of the participants used screens for <2 hours/day. About 61.5% have increased their screen time by >4 hours/day during the confinement. Additionally, 42.4% have lost 2 to 4 hours/week of outdoors activities. About 56% children in this study reported asthenopia symptoms, 49.1% of which stated that these aggravated during the confinement. Associations with the presence of these symptoms were found, most importantly the duration of screen use >2 hours (p=0.02), refractive error (p=0.04) and age (p<0.001). The worsening of symptoms during confinement was associated with >4 hours increase in screen time (p=0.02) and > 4 hours loss of outdoors activities (p=0.001).

Conclusion: It is critical that investigation about consequences on children’s visual health continues to thrive in order to objectively regulate the secure use of screens.