Purpose

Ocular manifestations and ocular transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in contact lens (CL) wearers may be fostered by non-compliance with care and maintenance instructions which, in turn, may be aggravated by inadequate patient-practitioner communication. The purpose of this research was to determine CL use, compliance and patient-practitioner communication during a 3-month long COVID-19 lockdown in Spain.

Methods

An online survey (developed using Google Forms) retrospectively evaluated CL compliance during the 3-month lockdown (responses captured between 15th July and 10th August, 2020), with particular emphasis on patient-practitioner communication, handwashing practices and CL case hygiene and replacement.

Results

A total of 247 responses were collected and analysed. Most participants used monthly replacement soft lenses (64.8 %) and multipurpose solutions (75.7 %), with 86.6 % of them owning a storage case for their lenses. During lockdown, a significant percentage of participants ceased lens wear (28.4 %) or reduced wearing time (49.2 %). Regarding patient-practitioner communication, 54.3 % of respondents received specific instructions, mostly about handwashing (93.3 %) and storage case hygiene (48.5 %). The most frequent non-compliant practices were inadequate handwashing (36.4 %), and overextending monthly or two-weekly replacement lenses (35.2 %). Many respondents never cleaned (23.0 %) nor replaced (16.3 %) their storage case, and 27.8 % of them reported not having been informed about case hygiene by their practitioners.

Conclusion

Contact lens compliance, particularly in terms of handwashing and storage case hygiene, was poor during a prolonged COVID-19 lockdown, thus stressing the need to foster patient-practitioner communication strategies to curtail the possibility of ocular transmission and the risk of virus tropism.

中文翻译：

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患者 - 在长时间的 COVID-19 锁定期间与从业者沟通和隐形眼镜依从性

目的

SARS-CoV-2 在隐形眼镜 (CL) 佩戴者中的眼部表现和眼部传播可能因不遵守护理和维护说明而加剧，而患者与从业者沟通不足可能会加剧这种情况。本研究的目的是确定在西班牙为期 3 个月的 COVID-19 封锁期间 CL 的使用、依从性和医患沟通。

方法

一项在线调查（使用 Google 表单开发）回顾性评估了 3 个月锁定期间的 CL 合规性（在 2020 年 7 月 15 日至 8 月 10 日期间捕获的答复），特别强调了患者与医生的沟通、洗手习惯以及 CL 病例的卫生和更换。

结果

共收集和分析了 247 份答复。大多数参与者使用每月更换一次软镜片 (64.8 %) 和多用途解决方案 (75.7 %)，其中 86.6 % 拥有镜片存储盒。在锁定期间，很大一部分参与者停止佩戴镜片 (28.4%) 或减少佩戴时间 (49.2%)。关于医患沟通，54.3% 的受访者收到了具体说明，主要是关于洗手 (93.3%) 和储存箱卫生 (48.5%)。最常见的不合规做法是洗手不足 (36.4%) 和过度延长每月或每两周更换镜片 (35.2%)。许多受访者从未清洁 (23.0 %) 或更换 (16.3 %) 他们的储藏箱，其中 27.8 % 的受访者报告说他们的从业者没有被告知箱的卫生情况。

结论

在长期的 COVID-19 封锁期间，隐形眼镜的依从性很差，特别是在洗手和储存盒卫生方面，因此强调需要培养患者与医生的沟通策略，以减少眼部传播的可能性和病毒趋向性的风险。