The incredible importance of teaching teens to care for their contact lenses

did you know that a whopping 3.6 million teens currently wear contact lenses? That’s 1 in 7 adolescents, and nearly all of them (87.8%) wear soft contacts, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report.

On the flip side, the CDC report found that an astounding 85% of contact lens-wearing teens have at least one habit that puts them in danger of eye infection. This unfortunate reality defines an opportunity for enhanced care for you and your staff.

The key questions:

Is your practice educating that dynamic demographic, and their parents, on caring for their contacts to keep their eyes healthy?

And, are you communicating in a way that will get through to the typical teen?

To help, here are several eye-raising stats, as reported by the CDC, along with seven savvy prevention pointers, to share with teens and parents alike.

True Confessions

Teens admit to a lot of bad contact lens-related habits:

» 41% of teens don’t visit an eye doctor at least once a year.

» 27% admit they go swimming in their contact lenses.

» 45% don’t replace lenses as prescribed.

» 30% sleep at night or nap during the day in them.

» 41% don’t routinely replace their contact lens cases.

» Only 4.2% of teens have ever reported “a red or painful eye” that required a visit to an ECP. It’s not that the problems don’t occur. It’s that they and their parents don’t report the situation to their family eye doctor.

Potential Problems

The CDC explains the potential result of these poor habits.

» RISKS: Not replacing contact lenses and/or their storage cases as recommended “increases the risk for contact lens-related eye infections…especially the opportunity to introduce micro-organisms.” That’s partly because “the moist surfaces of the lens and case provide an environment favorable to microbial growth.”

» INFECTIONS: In the last 12 years, there have been three outbreaks of Acanthamoeba keratitis and Fusarium keratitis. The only plus to have come from these outbreaks is that it raised awareness about the importance of contact lens care and wear.

Communications Strategies

The CDC offers suggestions for how you can better communicate with teens about contact lenses. The key is messaging that hits home with on-the-move teens.

» MESSAGING. Prevention messages can be shaped around the lifestyle changes they are experiencing.

» MARKETING. Apply existing health communication strategies known to influence behavior change in adolescents—e.g., appeals to vanity and social norms marketing.

According to MTV, teen communications must address three key teen wants: peer connectedness, positive self-image, and desired social image. An added bonus: Contact lenses play right into all of those wants and needs.

—Stephanie K. De Long