Abstract

Background: The Coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in the trend of continuing education through virtual mode in the form of online training and classes to benefit the medical students. This has led to an increase in the esthenopic symptoms among medical students. Objectives: This survey aims to find out the prevalence of ocular and extraocular effects of online classes provided by means of Google E classrooms which were started in mid-April month of year 2020 during lockdown.
Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study, conducted among medical students who are persuing MBBS in a medical college. The data were collected over a period of 4 months with the means of a questionnaire filled by medical students (mean age – 22.06 years) through online platform. This study does not involve administration of any kind of drug to any human being; hence, the scientific committee of our department has approved this study without any need of an ethical clearance. P value was calculated by SPSS software to analyze the data.
Results: Sample size was of 200 students, 52.5% of whom were females. The statistical analysis revealed that the eye fatigue (P = 0.00), watering of eyes (P = 0.01), burning or itching sensation (P = 0.01), and headache (P = 0.006) were the most significant ocular symptoms experienced by medical students. Whereas among systemic symptoms, day time sleepiness (P = 0.001) and shoulder ache (P = 0.02) were most commonly experienced by medical students. Conclusion: The upcoming trend of education through online classes due to COVID-19 lockdown has caused an increase in ocular and extraocular symptoms among medical students, which needs to be managed properly.