Dry eye disease is associated with deterioration of mental health in male Japanese university staff

Dry eye disease (DED) is defined as a multifactorial disease of the tears and ocular surface that results in symptoms of discomfort, visual disturbance, and tear-film instability, with potential damage to the ocular surface. It is thought to be associated with reduced quality of life (QOL). The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of DED on health-related QOL in Japanese university sedentary office workers who are daily users of visual display terminal. In this study, 163 university staff (99 male and 64 female), aged 23-69 years, served as study subjects. Subjects were asked to answer the following three questions. (1) How often do your eyes feel dry? (2) How often do your eyes feel irritated? (3) Have you ever been diagnosed by a clinician as having dry eye syndrome? Sixty-eight subjects who answered "constantly," "often", or "sometimes" to both questions 1 and 2 were classified as the DED Group, and the remaining 95 were defined as the Non-DED Group. QOL was assessed by the SF-36 questionnaire, which consisted of 36 items to produce three summary scores, namely, mental, physical, and role/social component summary scores. For males, the DED Group had significantly lower scores than the Non-DED Group for mental component summary (MCS) (P = 0.005). In multiple regression analysis, MCS scores were adversely related to DED in males (P = 0.015). DED was associated with worsened QOL. DED should be regarded as a factor that can lead to deterioration of mental health.