Abstract
Purpose :
To evaluate the association between visiting an eyecare provider and using protective eyewear while performing recreational activities that could cause eye injury.
Methods :
Information from National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 2016 was used with the sample limited to participants who stated they performed recreational activities that could potentially cause an eye injury. The outcome was divided into those who never wore protection compared to those that wore protection at least some of the time. Population characteristics of age group, gender, race, family income, employment, and visit to a general doctor in last 12 months were controlled for while evaluating the visitation to an eye doctor in last 12 months. Statistical analyses were performed with SAS (Cary, NC) using commands to account for the sampling design.
Results :
Excluding those with missing data, the analysis included a total of 5,090 participants who wore protective eyewear while 2,497 participants did not. Those that saw an eyecare provider had 15.5% lower odds of not wearing eye protection (95% confidence interval 0.75-0.95, P=0.004) while seeing a general provider made no difference (P=0.34). As compared to whites, there were no differences with others on usage but those who were black, Asian, or Hispanic were at higher odds to not wear protection (OR 1.75, 95% CI 1.33-2.31, P= <.0001; OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.53-2.65, P=<.0001; OR 1.55, 95% CI 1.27-1.89, P=<.0001, respectively). Females were at 1.72 times greater odds to not use eyewear (95% CI 1.54-1.92, P=<.0001). Those aged 18-24 years were at the highest odds to not wear protection as compared to all other age groups with those aged 55-64 years comparatively having the lowest odds (OR 0.32, 95% CI 0.26-0.39, P=<.0001). Additionally, those with family income at $75,000-$99,999 compared to $0-$34,999 had an 18.7% lower odds of no eyewear use (95% CI 0.69-0.96, P=0.02). For employment, no associations were found but retirement trended towards protection use.
Conclusions :
The results suggest that visitation with an eye care provider in the last 12 months decrease the odds of not wearing eye protection and thus likely prevents suffering from a recreational eye injury. Access to eyecare is an important part of eye injury prevention.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.