Dry Eye Disease Symptoms and Its Association with Daily Beverage Intake Among Adults in Saudi Arabia

PURPOSE: To evaluate the association between dry eye disease (DED) symptoms and daily beverage intake among adults in Saudi Arabia. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study, we distributed an online questionnaire to men and women older than 18 years living in Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire consisted of items related to the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants and two validated indices: the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) and the brief 15-item Beverage Intake Questionnaire (BEVQ-15). Participants were excluded if they were aged less than 18 years; wore contact lenses; had existing eye disease (excluding refractive errors), history of eye surgery (including corrective eye surgeries), or autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjogren’s syndrome); or were currently taking specific medications including antidepressants, antihistamines, and diuretics. RESULTS: After applying the study exclusion criteria, a total of 615 participants were included in the statistical analysis. The majority of participants were 18–34 years old (450, 73.2%), and men (381, 62%) exceeded women (234, 38%) by approximately 1.5-fold. OSDI scores showed that 344 participants (55.9%) had DED symptoms, 145 (23.6%) had mild dry eyes; and 106 (17.2%) and 93 (15.1%) had moderate and severe dry eyes, respectively. There was a significant association between sex and DED symptoms (p = 0.012); the frequency of DED symptoms in women exceeded that in men. However, no significant differences were observed with other demographic data such as age and location of residence. Although beverage intake was moderately correlated to OSDI score (R = 0.27), we found no significant association between beverage intake and DED symptoms. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to highlight the association between DED symptoms and daily beverage intake. We found a significant association between DED symptoms and female sex. However, no significant association was found between DED symptoms and other demographic characteristics or beverage intake.