Assessment and Management of Seasonal and Perennial Allergic Conjunctivitis: Guideline for Finnish Optometrists

Introduction: Ocular allergies are common and often benign but subjectively harmful eye diseases. The most encountered ocular allergies are seasonal allergic conjunctivitis (SAC) and perennial allergic conjunctivitis (PAC). These two conditions could be mainly managed by optometrists which could partly alleviate the crowded eye health care system of Finland. Currently, there is no guideline on this subject in Finland that is comprehensive enough and utilizes the knowledge of optometrists. Purpose: The purpose of this integrative review was to compile the necessary information for the guideline of assessing and managing seasonal allergic conjunctivitis (SAC) and perennial allergic conjunctivitis (PAC). Methods: An integrative review is a type of literature review, used in healthcare sciences, that allows more diverse types of material as a source. For this integrative review, 8 articles and 3 guidelines were analysed. Appraisal of the articles was done with the help of SANRA (Scale for the Quality Assessment of Narrative Review Articles) and the chosen articles were graded between 5 to 11 on a scale of 0-12. Grade 4 or under was one of the exclusion criteria. There was no specific tool to assess guidelines but all the chosen guidelines were published by well-known and reliable publishers and the process of conducting them was opened thoroughly. Results: The result of this study gives the tools for an optometrist to recognise the symptoms and assess the severity of SAC or PAC. It also gives directions in managing these conditions and emphasises the optometrist to recognize the limitations of personal competence while making clinical decisions. This integrative review gives a good baseline to further develop this into an official peer-reviewed guideline. Conclusions: This integrative review confirms the relevancy of optometrists in ocular allergy treatment. Optometrists are often a more accessible and economical option compared to doctors and more specific compared to nurses. Additionally, these results promote Finnish healthcare to utilize optometrists and their already existing abilities in treating common ocular allergies like SAC and PAC, and this way reduces the stress on the crowded eye health care