Current status of contact lenses usage in Korea: A population-based cohort study 2021

To investigate trends in contact lens usage in a nationally representative sample of the Korean population in 2021. For this retrospective study, we analyzed data of 3,601 Korean participants aged 10-59 years, from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES 2021 version), who underwent eye examination, of whom 1,136 individuals (274 men and 862 women) were contact lens users. The demographic trend among Korean contact lens wearers was examined using statistical analyses to investigate the changes in their contact lens-wearing experience, duration of lens use, type of lens used, location of purchase, presence of an Eye Care Practitioner(ECP)'s prescription, lens-related ophthalmic complications, and type of lenses worn at the time of complications, according to sex. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine the association of each variable with the rate of complications and use of soft lenses. The average age of the contact lens users was 33.42±0.33 years, with 70.36% (weighted percentage) of users being women who used contact lenses for significantly longer periods than men (p