Injuries in marginal workers and social trauma in female: Important cause of the paradigm shift in eye injury over a decade

Clinical and Social Features of Patients with Eye Injuries Admitted to a Tertiary Hospital: A Five-Year Retrospective Study from Crete, Greece

Eye injuries are a major cause of visual disability worldwide and may present a burden to both quality of life of the sufferers and healthcare services. The aim of this study was to extract and triangulate information on the demographic, clinical, and social features of eye-injured adult patients admitted to a tertiary hospital in Greece. The design was a five-year retrospective study of eye-injured adult patients, admitted to the General University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete (GUHH), the single tertiary referral hospital on the island. Drawing the profile of eye-injured patients may add to future health planning. Data collected from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2019, such as sociodemographic features and clinical information, were extracted. One hundred twenty-eight patients were included. Of those, there was no available information on activity during injury for 6 patients, 78 (60.9%) had work-related ocular injuries, and 44 (34.4%) had non-work-related ocular injuries. Patients with no current formal employment, those who were retired, and formally unemployed and manual force workers had the higher rates of work-related injuries. The most common work-related injuries were closed globe injuries, specifically contusions, while ruptures and penetrating wounds were the most frequent of the open globe injuries. Within the univariate analyses, work-related eye injuries were significantly associated with male gender, middle age, and the place related to daily work activity. Determinants of poor final visual acuity (VA) were the initial VA, the type of injury (p < 0.0001), the distance of the place of residence from the hospital, and the time to hospital admission (p < 0.013). In a multivariate analysis, referred patients and those with open globe injuries arrived at hospital after a two-hour interval compared with those who were not referred and those with closed globe injuries (p ≤ 0.05). A reduction in the time to hospital admission deserves further attention. The interconnection of community and health system services through a capacity increase and networking needs further research in order to obtain targeted and viable access for eye-injured patients.

The possible impact of increased physical intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic on ocular health

During the COVID-19 outbreak, sheltering at home has led to an increase in physical intimate partner violence cases. Intimate partner violence-sustained ocular injuries may be higher during the pandemic due to the increase in physical intimate partner violence. Left untreated, intimate partner violence-related ocular or orbital trauma can lead to permanent vision loss. Even with treatment, patients often lose vision from intimate partner violence-related traumatic ocular injuries. Eye care providers and eye care facilities should understand the community services available to intimate partner violence survivors to better care for these patients. Due to the potential lasting economic burden and social strain of this pandemic, eye care providers and facilities should stay vigilant as there may still be a sustained increase in intimate partner violence even after the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Visual outcome after emergency surgery for open globe eye injury in Japan

Background

Most patients with open globe eye injury are brought to hospital as emergency patients and usually require admission for emergency surgery. We analyzed the visual outcome in patients with open globe eye injury at our hospital over a 4-year period.

Patients and methods

This study reviewed 40 eyes of 40 patients with open globe eye injury who were presented to Juntendo University Shizuoka Hospital and required emergency surgery during the 4 years from January 2010 to December 2014. Retrospective evaluation of the visual outcome was performed using data from the medical records, including assessment of the influence of sex, side of the eye injury, cause of injury, and site/severity of injury.

Results

The mean age (SD) at the time of the injury was 58.9 years (±25.1 years). There were 28 males (70.0%) and 12 females (30.0%). Statistically significant improvement in visual acuity after treatment was noted in the males (P=0.0015, Wilcoxon test), but not in the females. Twenty-five patients had injury to the right eye (62.5%) and 15 had injury to the left eye (37.5%). A significant improvement in visual acuity was achieved after treatment of injury to the right eye (P=0.021), but not the left eye (P=0.109). The most frequent cause of injury was an accident (15 eyes; 37.5%). The second most frequent cause was work-related injury (14 eyes; 35.0%), which only occurred in males, and the third cause was accident due to negligence (eleven eyes; 27.5%). Two patients developed sympathetic ophthalmia and one patient developed postoperative endophthalmitis.

Conclusion

The majority of patients with open globe eye injury were male workers in Japan. The visual outcome of work-related injury was better than that of injury due to other causes. The visual outcome was also better if the right eye was injured compared with the left eye. Patients with injuries due to negligence were older than the other groups, and this finding might be characteristic of an aging society.