Investigation of dry eye symptoms of medical staffs working in hospital during 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak

The aim of this study was to survey the prevalence of dry eye symptoms (DES) among doctors and nurses in the period of 2019, novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. To evaluate the DES of doctors and nurses worked at front-line hospitals with protective glasses for a mean time of 4 to 6 hours, a questionnaire developed by the researchers with the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) was used. These data were evaluated using descriptive statistics and correlation test with SPSS 22.0. The study included 13 doctors and 40 nurses, among which 16 were male and 37 were female, and the mean age of the participants was 32.43 ± 5.15 years old. According to the OSDI scores, 64.15, 24.52, 7.54, and 3.77% of the participants experienced occasional, mild, moderate, and severe DES, respectively. The factors significantly correlated with OSDI scores were age and duration of wearing protective glasses, while the duration of wearing protective glasses may be a protective factor of dry eye symptoms. Our study showed that most of the doctors and nurses worked at the front-line of combating COVID-19 did not experience DES, while the symptoms of those who experienced DES might be improved by wearing protective glasses.