Wuxi City Dry Eye Epidemiology Survey

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of dry eye and related risk factors of dry eyein populations equal or over 50 years old in Helie districts, Wuxi.Methods: The venues of Epidemiological investigation were selected by clusterrandom sampling in sampling points of Helie districts from March to July 2010.Equal or over 50 years old were registered to determine the list of participants. Everyparticipant from the sampling point was informed and checked in the implementationphase of subjects, the survey included symptoms of dry eye and related medicalhistory questionnaire and eye examination. The symptoms of dry eye questionnaireinclude dry, gritty or sandy sensation, burning sensation, red, crusting on lashes,eyelids heavy sensation. Eye examination include Tear-film break-up time,Fluorescein staining of the cornea, and SchirmerⅠtest. Epi Info software was used tocreate the database. The diagnosis of dry eye was referred to the diagnostic criteria.The SPSS17.0 software was used to analyze the database.Results: A total of 912 eligible subjects, 849 took part in the Epidemiological. 827accepted the examination with the participating rate of 90.68%, including 328 menand 499 women. 178 individuals were diagnosed as dry eye,and the prevalence ratewas 21.5%. 178 dry eye patients including 58 men and 120 women, the dry eyeprevalence rate of male was 17.68%, the dry eye prevalence rate of female was24.05%. The age groups were divided 50-59, 60-69, 70-79 and over 80, the numbersof dry eye patients were 20.54%, 22.26%, 22.14%, 20.75%. The prevalence rates ofmale were 13.19%, 17.00%, 24.24%, 20.83%; The prevalence rates of femalewere23.79%, 26.32%, 20.27%, 20.69%. The prevalence of dry eye was statisticallysignificant with diabetes, hypertension, long-time using of eye solutions, blink lessand the different levels of education differences (P<0.01). The prevalence of dry eye in different Ages had no statistically significant.Conclusions: The prevalence of dry eye is high in populations equal or over 50 yearsold in Wuxi, The dry eye prevalence of female is higher than male, diabetes mellitus,blink less, long time using of eye solutions. Age is not associated with dry eye inpopulations equal or over 50 years old.