Abstract
Purpose :
Pediatric eye trauma puts children at risk for permanent vision loss. Understanding trends in eye trauma may provide insight into ways to decrease trauma and its associated visual morbidity. The goal of this study was to evaluate temporal and seasonal trends in pediatric eye trauma based on emergency room visits in California.
Methods :
Children who presented with eye trauma as their primary diagnosis to emergency rooms in California over a 9 year period were identified using the California Health Care Access and Information database. International Classification of Diseases (ICD) diagnosis codes were used to identify type of eye trauma. The main outcome measures were annual and seasonal trends in emergency room childhood eye trauma incidence. The Regional Kendall Test was used to assess temporal trends and the Ollech-Webel test was used to assess seasonality.
Results :
There were 27,346,729 emergency room visits for children in the state of California over the 9 year study period (2012-2021). Of these, 87,658 (0.32%) were visits with a primary diagnosis of eye trauma. The mean age at time of presentation was 8.5±5.6 years (median 8.0; IQR = 4.0, 13.0) and there was a male predominance (59%). The most common type of insurance was Medicaid (51.4%) followed by commercial health maintenance organization (HMO; 21.0%). The most common diagnosis was superficial injury to the cornea or conjunctiva, accounting for 36.8% of all visits. The incidence of visits per 10,000 children per year decreased from 12.6 in 2012 to 7.9 in 2021 (P for trend <0.001; Figure 1). Spring was the most common season for presentation and winter was the least common (P for 12-month seasonality <0.001;Figure 1).
Conclusions :
Overall, ocular trauma represents a small fraction of emergency room visits for children in California. We found a decrease in childhood ocular trauma presenting to the ED over time. Following demographic, temporal, and seasonal trends in pediatric eye trauma may allow targeted interventions to decrease ocular injury in children.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.