The evaluation of dry eye mobile apps for screening of dry eye disease and educational tear event in Japan

Purpose: To evaluate the usefulness of a dry eye mobile application (app) for screening dry eye disease (DED) at educational tear events in Japan. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, Japanese subjects visiting a “Tears Day” event were selected randomly. They completed questionnaires and underwent ophthalmic evaluations for DED (using Japanese revised diagnostic criteria) including a functional visual acuity (FVA) test. The app calculated FVA using the average of the continuous VA over 30 s. Results: Sixty-three general-population subjects were included: 25 men and 38 women (average age, 50.8 ± 15.9 years). The prevalence of DED was 66.7% (42 subjects); age was significantly higher among subjects with DED (55.2 ± 3.4 vs. 48.1 ± 2.7 years, p = 0.04; men, 54.0 ± 7.3 vs. 47.0 ± 3.0 years, p = 0.36; women, 55.5 ± 3.9 vs. 50.6 ± 3.8 years, p = 0.4). The prevalence of DED was significantly higher in women (p = 0.04). Tear film breakup time was significantly shorter (3.8 ± 2.4 vs. 8.7 ± 2.0, p = 0.04) and the meibum score was significantly higher (p = 0.02) among subjects with DED. Regarding the tear film breakup pattern, line and random breaks were most prevalent among DED. FVA showed a significant negative correlation with DED (r = −0.25, p = 0.047). Conclusions: The app might motivate people to perform quick tests with the expectation of getting easy DED screening. The number of subjects diagnosed with DED was relatively high.