Work related eye injuries: Epidemiology in a tertiary care eye hospital of South India

Hegde SS, Dharwadkar S, Sukumar P

Pdf Page Numbers :- 194-197

Shubhratha S Hegde¹, Sandhya Dharwadkar^1,* and Pooja Sukumar²

¹Department of Ophthalmology, Mysore Medical College & Research Institute, Irwin Road, Mysore 570001, Karnataka, India

²Department of Ophthalmology, Kodagu Institute of Medical Sciences, Madikeri-571201, Karnataka, India

*Corresponding author: Dr. Sandhya Dharwadkar, MS Ophthalmology, Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology, Mysore Medical College & Research Institute, Irwin Road, Mysore 570001, Karnataka, India. Email: drsandhyahegde@gmail.com

Received 2 March 2023; Revised 8 June 2023; Accepted 16 June 2023; Published 26 June 2023

Citation: Hegde SS, Dharwadkar S, Sukumar P. Work related eye injuries: Epidemiology in a tertiary care eye hospital of South India. J Med Sci Res. 2023; 11(3):194-197. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17727/JMSR.2023/11-36

Copyright: © 2023 Hegde SS et al. Published by KIMS Foundation and Research Center. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Abstract

Background: Work related eye injuries are one of the common causes for preventable vision loss. The aim of the study was to analyse the epidemiological characteristics of work related eye injury in a tertiary care eye hospital in South India.

Methodology: This prospective observational study included all patients who reported to ophthalmic outpatient department with work related eye injury during the study period.

Results: Out of the 416 patients, majority were males. The injuries were common in younger age group. Metal welding and grinding, and agriculture were the high risk occupations for work related eye injuries. Corneal foreign body was the most common type of eye injury noted. Most of the patients were not using protective eye gear at the time of injury. About 7.2% of the patients had previous history of eye injury at work place.

Conclusion: As work related eye injury is common in younger age group early intervention is required in order to avoid permanent visual impairment. Specific interventional programmes should be considered as these workers are prone for recurrent eye injuries. There is a need for more effective preventive measures, especially in metal work, agriculture and carpentry, where increased frequency and worst prognoses of injuries were observed.

Keywords: eye injuries; preventable; visual disability; protective eye gear