Studying factors influencing eye indicators of computer users: A systematic review

Introduction: Nowadays, working in any computer work stations, named visual display terminal (VDT), was widespread and has become popular in our lives. Due to the increasing trend of using computers in the administrative and social institutions, prevalence of eye-related signs of working with computers is still increasing and it is one of the most important health issues. Computer jobs are low-mobility and require little energy to do physical work, but require more cognitive processing and mental focus. Visual fatigue is an occupational hazard for people working with computers. Eye fatigue has symptoms such as headaches, job discomfort, and eye pain the purpose of this study was to have a systematic review on eye fatigue, dry eye and eye blink among people working with visual terminals.   Material and Methods: Internet search databases and search engines were used to find articles with focusing on the impact of risk factors on eye indexes on computer users. In this study, related articles were obtained from websites, including: PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Sciences. The keywords were used to search in these websites were: computer user, eye fatigue, dry eye and eye blink. Accordingly, after finding 115 relevant articles from the related sites, 17 articles were finally selected. Results: Findings show that using computer cause many problems in the eye. Duration of using the computer, the type of work with the computer, the mental load, the distance from the monitor, and also long-term use of the computer without break in during work can cause dry and fatigue eye in users, which is one of the most common ocular problems among computer users. Conclusion: According to the finding and results recommended to reduce of dry and fatigue eye, distance of users from the monitors, be more than 50cm, use 20-20-20 law to rest user’s eyes, and  Positioning the monitor be 15-20 degrees below the user’s line of sight. Also, too much focus on the screen reduces blinking and resulting in dry eyes. In order to prevent dryness of the surface of the eye, it is recommended that the eyelid be optional even if possible. Increasing the contrast of the monitor can be helpful in reducing stress and strain on the eye while working with a computer and using glasses instead of lenses to correct refractive errors and one of the ways to control and improve dry eye is using artificial tears by computer users.