Assessing public awareness of daily eyelid hygiene habits in Saudi Arabia: An online survey study

Bibliometric analysis of publication trends on ocular hygiene and infections in the past two decades

Background

Ocular hygiene encompasses a spectrum of measures to initiate and maintain adequate ocular cleanliness to prevent eye infections and their further transmission. These infections affect all age groups and can lead to severe complications such as blindness. Nearly 1 billion cases could have been prevented out of over 2.2 billion people that are visually impaired worldwide. This bibliometric analysis focuses on the papers published on ocular hygiene and infections.

Methods

We searched in the Scopus database from 2004 to 2024. After manual screening, a list of the 100 most-cited original articles was obtained, which was analysed for various factors, including temporal trends, subject areas, authorship patterns, country of origin, funding bodies, etc.

Results

There has been a gradual decline over the past two decades in the number of publications. The United States was affiliated with the highest number of publications (n=61), followed by The United Kingdom (n=12) and Gambia (n=8). Several authors had 4 or more publications, with the highest number of publications by Rouse, B. T. (n=14). The American Journal of Ophthalmology takes the lead with 15 publications, while the National Eye Institute (n=23) was the leading funding body. Examination of institutional contributions shows that The University of Tennessee, Knoxville and UT College of Veterinary Medicine stand out with twelve publications each. Nearly half the publications belong to the field of medicine. However, significant publications also come from the fields Neuroscience, Microbiology and Immunology, Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology, etc. These findings highlight that there is great potential to conduct research to propagate ocular hygiene to prevent adverse effects of infections.

The Use of Infrared Auto Refractometer for Meibomian Gland Imaging

Introduction This study proposes the utility of an infrared auto refractometer for meibography and compares miebographs obtained by an auto refractometer to meibographs obtained by a designated meibography machine. Methods A prospective observational comparative study of meibographs of patients with clinical signs of meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD) using a designated meibography machine and an infrared auto refractometer. Five masked, experienced interpreters graded the images of the two machines. The Kappa test was used to calculate Intra-rater and inter-rater agreements between the meibography machine and automated refractor grading of meibomian gland dysfunction. Results High-quality photos of all 30 eyes delineating the meibomian glands (MG) were successfully obtained with both the meibography machine and the autorefractor. Both methods had a good intra-rater agreement (κ= 0.667 to 0.784, average 0.738). Poor to fair interrater agreement was noticed in the grading of autorefractor images (k= -0.030 to 0.343, average 0.092) and poor to moderate agreements between investigators for meibography machine images (K= -0.016 to 0.420, average 0.173). Conclusion A commercially available auto refractometer could capture high-quality non-contact IR digital meibographs.