Prevalence of eye and visual symptoms among office workers and their relationship to self-assessed productivity loss

Sammanfattning: Aim: The dual aims of this descriptive cross-sectional study were: 1) to assess the prevalence of eye-and visual symptoms among a population of office workers and; 2) to analyse if these symptoms were associated with self-assessed productivity. Method: A questionnaire consisting of the Computer Vision Syndrome Questionnaire, Convergence Insufficiency Symptom Scale and the Work Limitations Questionnaire was provided to each employee. Descriptive statistics on the number of individuals classified as eye-and visual symptom cases was computed. Multiple logistic regressions analyses were performed on the individual eye-and visual symptom scores as independent variables with the self-assessed productivity limitation scores as the dependent variable. Main result: Out of 127 office workers, 76 answered the questionnaire (60% response rate). The estimated prevalence’s of eye- and visual symptoms were 73% (95% CI: 61−83%) for Computer Vision Syndrome and 32% (95% CI: 21−43%) for Convergence Insufficiency-related symptoms. The multiple regression analyses revealed strong positive associations between eye/visual symptoms and productivity limitations for both Computer Vision Syndrome scores (p<0.001, r2=0,22) and Convergence Insufficiency-related symptoms scores (p<0.001, r2=0,39). Conclusions: Symptoms of Computer Vision Syndrome and Convergence Insufficiency were both prevalent, the former more so than the later. These symptoms were both strongly associated with limitations in self-assessed productivity. More research efforts are warranted to replicate and explore these work and health associations.