Abstract
Background: Most of the pediatric ocular injuries presenting to emergency departments in the last two decades have been in preschool-age children in the US. The goal of this study is to characterize the epidemiology of consumer product-related ocular trauma in children, ages <5, occurring at home in the U.S from 2000-2019.
Methods: Retrospective epidemiological study from 2000-2019 utilizing the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System.
Results: There were an estimated 258,071 total ED visits for children age <5 due to an ocular injury at home with 58.7% occurring in boys and 50% in toddlers 1-3 years of age. The average incidence of consumer product-related ocular injury that occurred at home, for the last decade, was 5.74 per 10,000 persons under 5 years of age.
Detergents/chemicals accounted for one-third of all eye injury-related ED visits in preschool age children in both sexes. Most patients were treated and released from the ED (250,070; 96.9%) with ocular contusions (101,642; 39.4%) being the most common eye injury diagnosis. Nineteen percent of the estimated 5,147 hospitalized or transferred to the hospital had an open globe injury (OGI).
The highest number of ED visits for ocular injuries occurred in April and May, and the fewest presented in February. Approximately 30% of injuries were seen on the weekend.
Conclusions: Boys comprised the majority of consumer product-related eye injuries in preschool-age children. Detergents/chemicals related trauma remains the most common cause of ocular injury at home in pre-school children. The mean annual rate of ocular injury at home in children <5yo, decreased from 11.31 per 10,000 (1990-2009) to 5.74 per 10,000 (2010-2019).
Keywords
Eye injury, Detergents/chemicals, Home