Hygienic Characteristics of the Digital Information and Educational Environment and the Risk of Its Mental Health Impacts in Students with Different Degrees of Myopia

Abstract

Introduction: Today, educational conditions and the lifestyle of students of medical universities, coupled with active introduction of electronic educational resources, information and communication technologies and development of a digital environment, pose a challenge of maintaining psycho-emotional wellbeing of students. This problem is especially relevant among students with myopia since, inter alia, the increasing visual load has a potential adverse effect on their mental and emotional health. Objective: to give a hygienic characteristic of electronic information and educational environment and to assess its risk on students’ mental health with myopia of varying degrees. Materials and methods: We assessed intensity of the educational process of 1,100 first to third-year students (aged 17 to 25 years) of the Orenburg State Medical University and analyzed data on the type, frequency and purpose of their using information and communication tools for study and leisure. We also conducted a questionnaire-based survey of 168 healthy students and 138 students with myopia to assess their mental health and determine the type of character accentuation, the anxiety level, and negative emotional experiences in educational and everyday life. Results: We observed very intensive educational activities of the medical students against the background of the use of electronic gadgets by every second student for educational purposes lasting up to 4.8 hours a day and additional visual load due to the use of a mobile phone by 93.6 % of students to visit social network sites more than five times a day with the total duration for every third person ranging from 25 to 50 minutes a day. We established that the presence and degree of myopia determined the anxious-pedantic type of character accentuation and a 1.3-fold increase in the anxiety level in everyday activities. In educational activities, it resulted in a 1.7-fold decrease in the level of anxiety and a 1.3-fold increase in the level of negative emotional experiences. Conclusion: We established mental health risk factors of intense educational activities and an extensive use of information and communication tools by the students, including those with myopia, for study and leisure. Our findings prove the necessity of a differentiated approach to hygienic examination and regulation of various types of activities of the educational process in order to prevent the development and progression of myopia in medical university students.