Knowledge of Soft Contact Lenses Wear and Care Among College Students

Aim: To understand knowledge of soft contact lenses wear and care amongcollege students. Methodology: A prospective–observational study was conducted using a structured questionnaire among the contact lens wearers from November 2020 to May 2021. Study site is healing touch eye hospital. Sets of validated questionnaires were distributed among college students. A convenience sampling method was used in this study, and the sample size was calculated. The total sample size that was taken is 300. The data collected was analysed using Statistical analysis and it was performed using IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for the social sciences) version 20. College students were included within the age group of 18 to 30 years. Subjects not willing to participate were excluded. Results: In this prospective observational study questionnaires were takenup by 300 subjects, but due to incomplete forms, had to reject 20 forms. Out of 280 subjects, 74.29% (208) subjects had refractive error and 25.71% (72) subjects had no refractive error, and only 44.29% (124) subjects reported that they use contact lenses. Out of the 124 contact lens users, 120 subjects were soft contact lens users, 3 were RGP contact lens users and 1 was Semi Scleralcontact lens user. It was also noticed that most of the subjects got their contact lenses from optical shops, eye hospitals and optometric clinics. Conclusion: From the results of our study,it is hereby concluded that most ofthe subjects got their contact lenses from optical shops, eye hospitals and optometric clinics. Refractive wear and cosmetic wear were the main purposes for the use of contact lenses. Most of the subjects used contact lenses on a daily basis, followed lens wear modality, and frequent replacement schedule and used multipurpose solution to clean and soak their lenses. Almost all contact lens users washed their hands before using their contact lenses and also cleaned their contact lenses by rubbing and ringing their lenses.