INTRODUCTION

The history of contact lens has its root back to 1508 where the idea was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci in his journal Codex of the eye, Manual D. He described a technique of directly altering corneal power by submerging the eye in a bowl of water.In 1998, an important development was the launch of the first silicone hydrogels onto the market which has extremely high oxygen permeability with the comfort and clinical performance of the conventional hydrogels which had been used for the previous 30 years.

A contact lens or also known simply as a contact is a corrective, cosmetic, or therapeutic lens usually placed on the cornea of the eye. Some soft contact lenses are tinted a faint blue to make them more visible when immersed in cleaning and storage solutions. Some cosmetic lenses are deliberately colored to alter the appearance of the eye. Some lenses now have a UV protection surface treatment to reduce UV damage to the eye's natural lens.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether improper maintenance of contact lenses is the causes of infection among students in Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP).

Past studies had shown that careless handling of lenses specifically during cleaning of lenses may lead to microbial infections such as Acanthameoba. This statement had been claimed by Devonshire, Munro, Abernethy & Clark (1993) and Khalid, Hisham, & Aabed (2001). Therefore, we would like to study in depth whether the manner of improper cleaning of lenses could lead to infections or not.

According to Gray, Cursons, Sherwan, & Rose (1995) and Dart (1988), infection does not only occur on the contact lens itself but can also occur inside the lens case. As lens cases are only use as storage of lenses, we believed many users have neglected the proper management of the cases. Here, we would like to investigate the effects of careless management of lens cases towards contact lens users.

Based on Khalid, Hisham, & Aabed (2001), extended wear of lenses, that is more than one day could bring harm to the users but Dart (1988) stated in his study that the relation of period of wearing a lens at one time and the effects on the users depends on the type of the lenses used. A question is raised here whether prolonged use of lenses could cause harm to the users or not. We would also investigate this variable in our study.

Our research questions are as follows:

Does improper manner of cleaning contact lenses could lead to infections? Does careless management of contact lens cases could bring harm to the users and

how frequent should the cases be changed to avoid infections? What is the optimal period of wearing contact lenses at one time to prevent

infections?

What are the crucial steps in maintaining contact lenses?

In our context of study we define some terms as follow.

Maintenance – includes the act of handling, cleaning, rinsing and storing contact lenses.

Type of contact lens – categorizing lenses on how long is the contact lens could be used before disposing. In our study type of contact lenses ranging from daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.

Experienced users – Using contact lenses for more than three years.