Arshad Janjua, Iram Naveed, Altaf Hussain, Waqar S H, Sameena Afghan.
Frequency of Traumatic Painful Red Eye and Educational Level.
Ann Pak Inst Med Sci Jan ;11(4):185-9.

Background: Ocular trauma remains a major cause of visual impairment and is associated with numerous emergency room and outpatient visits. Injuries occur with a broad range of severity, patients can present with painful red eye, including simple subconjunctival hemorrhage, lid laceration, corneal abrasion, traumatic iritis, hyphema, lens injury, vitreous hemorrhage, retinal detachment, traumatic optic neuropathy, retrobulbar hemorrhage, orbit fracture and ruptured globes. Objective: To determine the frequency of traumatic painful red eye and its association with occupation and educational level in the patients presenting to Accident & Emergency Department, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad. Study Design: A cross-sectional quantitative, descriptive study. Place and Duration: The study was conducted at Accident and Emergency Department, PIMS Hospital, Islamabad for six months from October 2014 to March 2015. Materials and Methods: Basic data of the patients’ socio-demographic profile, presenting complaints, history of signs/symptoms; causes of red eye etc were noted on pre- designed structured Performa. The results were presented in the form of frequency, percentage, bar graph and pie chart. An informed written consent was taken from all the patients included in this study. Results: A total of 162 patients were enrolled in the study. The mean age was 35.7+14.1 years (Ranges from 13 years to 76 years). There were 146 (90.1%) males while 16 (9.9%) were females. 56 (34.6%) patients had education level at Metric/FSc level, followed by 35 (21.6%) patients at graduate level and 33 (20.4%) patients at middle grade level. It was observed that 92 (56.8%) patients were employed in a private sector job while 31 (19.1%) patients were jobless. The common causes of eye trauma were foreign body injuries in 44 (27.2%) cases followed by 23 (14.2%) patients had eye trauma because of sharp objects used in occupational activities. There was no association of traumatic red eye injuries with either occupation type (p=0.2) or educational level (p=0.5). Conclusion: Majority of the patients with eye trauma and associated with red eye presented with history of road traffic accidents and human inflicted injuries with sharp or blunt objects. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment is the best solution as well as documentation of frequency of eye injury types for future protective and health education measures.

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