Abstract
Purpose :
Ocular injury is a major cause of eye pain in the United States. We performed an analysis of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) chart data to determine which patient demographic factors are associated with higher self-reported pain in ocular injury.
Methods :
We analyzed four years (2017-2021) of data through the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) database. All EMS activations for ocular injury were extracted alongside demographic information and were grouped into cases of self-reported high pain (maximum pain of 5/10 and above) and low pain (4/10 and below). Similarly, the medications given for each case of ocular injury were also recorded. Associations between demographic identifiers and pain were determined through logistic regression.
Results :
Out of 53,589 recorded cases of ocular injury, 20,766 patients reported high maximum levels of pain. Females were 1.24 times more likely to report high pain than males (CI: 1.195 - 1.285). “Emergent (Immediate Response)” cases were 1.20 times more likely to report high maximum pain than non-emergent cases (CI: 1.135-1.260). Patients between 16 and 75 years old were more likely to report high pain than patients below 15. This was especially true of patients between 26 and 35 years of age (OR: 1.717, CI: 1.585 - 1.859). Patients above the age of 75 were less likely to report high pain (OR: 0.699, CI: 0.635 - 0.770). Patients in the Midwest and South regions were less likely to report high pain than those in the West (Midwest, OR: 0.868, CI: 0.807 - 0.933; South, OR: 0.800, CI: 0.748 - 0.855). While most cases did not specify any given medications, we found that a greater percentage of high pain patients relative to low pain patients received opioids (10.04% vs. 0.44%), non-opioid analgesics (1.44% vs 0.46%), antiemetics (3.90% vs. 1.05%), and sedatives (1.00% vs 0.60%).
Conclusions :
Social determinants of health may contribute to higher pain in ocular injury patients. Such findings may prove useful to EMS providers and warrant future investigations regarding the nature and treatment of ocular injury.
This abstract was presented at the 2024 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, WA, May 5-9, 2024.