Patient-reported prevalence and severity for the 10 core symptoms of dry eye disease. All items map to the OSDI (Ocular Surface Disease Index) — the validated instrument your clinician uses.
The OSDI is a validated patient-reported questionnaire that captures dry eye symptoms, vision-related function, and environmental triggers experienced over the past week. Originally a 12-item instrument introduced in 1997, it has been adapted into the shorter OSDI-6: six items that preserve the psychometric performance of the full version while taking less than a minute to complete.
TFOS DEWS III recommends OSDI-6 as the gold-standard patient-reported outcome measure for dry eye disease. It was selected because it is validated across populations and languages, sensitive to clinically meaningful change, aligned with the multifactorial DEWS III definition of DED, and short enough to integrate into routine clinical workflow and longitudinal tracking.
The OSDI-6 condenses the original 12-item instrument into 6 items spanning the same three symptom domains.
Light sensitivity, painful or sore eyes, gritty / sandy feeling.
Difficulty reading, difficulty using a computer or screen.
Symptoms worse in windy, dry, or air-conditioned environments.
Each mapped to the OSDI-6 framework.
Sandy, scratchy, or rough feeling in the eyes — the most common dry eye symptom.
Stinging or burning on blink, often worse with drops or after long screen use.
Vision clarity that changes through the day — sharper after a blink, blurrier between blinks.
Tiredness or heaviness around the eyes, typically worse by the end of the day.
Discomfort in bright light — sunlight, fluorescent lighting, or vehicle headlights at night.
Aching, tenderness, or sharp pain around the eyes or eyelid margins.
Symptoms worse with wind, low humidity, air-conditioning, or dry climates.
Lenses uncomfortable, can’t wear as long as before, or become unwearable entirely.
Symptoms worse during or after prolonged screen use — computer, phone, or TV.
Paradoxical watery eyes — the eye over-produces tears in response to underlying dryness.
The structured history we capture for each symptom you log.
A structured approach borrowed from clinical pain assessment. For every symptom you log, DryEyeMonitor captures the six OPQRST dimensions — giving your clinician the same information they would gather in a face-to-face consult.
When did it start? Sudden or gradual? What were you doing?
What makes it worse (screens, A/C, wind)? What relieves it (drops, blinking, closing eyes)?
What does it feel like? Gritty, burning, watering, stinging, sharp.
One eye or both? Eyelid margin, ocular surface, behind the eye?
How intense, on a 0–10 scale — mapped to the OSDI-6 severity bands.
How long has it lasted? Continuous, intermittent, getting better or worse?
DryEyeMonitor®
