Abstract
Background: Ocular trauma is a preventable global crisis of great importance, however there are nearly 1.6 million people consequentially blind as a result of its neglected manifestations. It occupies 7% of all bodily injuries and 10- 15% of all eye diseases. Hence not only causing blindness or visual morbidity but also resulting in immense physical and psychological costs on society and a financial burden on the health-care service system.
Aim: The aim of this study is to describe clinical features, analyze visual outcomes, make recommendations for the public health and provide clinical strategies for the sake of facilitating the composition of future OT related research and managing the rate of or preventing ocular trauma occurrences in the future.
Methods: This retrospective case series study reviewed Medical files of patients who have been admitted through both ER and the outpatient clinics at KAUH between 2010 and 2017 with ocular trauma. Patients of all ages who were admitted to the hospital with ocular injuries, listed under the category of: Hyphema, traumatic cataract, corneal laceration, orbital fractures, foreign body injuries, and had their investigation done at KAUH were included in this study. While those who were admitted without a file number and non-traumatic eye diseases or injuries that were due to surgical complication or a medical disease such as corneal ulcers, vitreous hemorrhage, ocular abrasions were excluded.
Results: Twenty-four medical records of ocular trauma patients between the year 2010 till 2017 were reviewed. Males formed 7% of them, 45.8% were in the pediatric age groups, 66.7% were none Saudi, 62.5% of the patients developed traumatic cataract as a major complication, and 45.8% were home related injuries. There was a significant relation between the age and the causes of the traumas, traumatic cataract and the time interval, and between duration of hospitalization with the time interval.
Conclusion: From this study its determined that delay in presentation majorly for non-Saudi patients had significant effects on the final visual acuity. This study found that the most common cause of ocular trauma is home and neighborhood -related injuries followed by school related injuries, so its important that parents and teachers always try to supervise their children and take away all objects that have the potential to inflict harm or injury.