Discomfort and dry eyes are the major causes of patient dissatisfaction with contact lenses, and often contact lens practitioners will suggest switching to disposable lenses to improve performance, however research from the University of New South Wales, Australia funded by CIBA Vision and the Brien Holden Vision Institute, shows that simply reducing the length of time the patient is wearing contact lenses results in a large improvement in comfort and dryness.

The study, published June 2015 in Optometry and Vision Science, found that there was little decrease in patient comfort and dryness when contacts were worn for a period of less than four hours, but was significantly decreased for patients wearing contacts for over eight hours.

The time of day when the contacts were worn had no effect on the comfort of the contact lenses when worn for a four hour period, suggesting that discomfort with contact lenses was not caused by general eye fatigue.

This research indicates that patients unable to wear contacts comfortably for an entire day would benefit from adopting shorter periods of wear during the times of day where their lifestyle most demands comfortable contact lens wear.

Further Information: http://journals.lww.com/optvissci/Abstract/2015/06000/Ocular_Discomfort_Responses_after_Short_Periods_of.5.aspx