Consumer Product-Related Pediatric Eye Injuries Treated in United States Emergency Departments

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study investigates characteristics and trends of children <18 years old treated in United States emergency departments (EDs) for consumer product-related eye injuries.

Methods

Data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System for January 1, 1997 through December 31, 2019 were analyzed.

Results

During the 23-year study period, an estimated 1,453,283 children were treated for consumer product-related eye injuries, averaging 63,186 children annually. Overall, the eye injury rate per 100,000 children <18 years old increased initially from 82.64 in 1997 to 104.53 in 2001 (p = .0492) and then decreased by 32.1% to 70.95 in 2019 (p < .0001). Almost two-thirds (64.5%) were boys and 32.1% were <5 years old. Overall, 2.6% of patients were admitted, but injuries involving non-powder firearms and golf had the highest admission rates (18.8% and 14.7%, respectively). Compared with other product categories, children were more frequently admitted if they had an eye injury associated with non-powder firearms (18.8% admitted; OR: 10.92, 95% CI: 8.67–13.76) or golf (14.7% admitted; OR: 6.59, 95% CI: 3.51–12.34). Contact with a non-chemical product was the leading mechanism of eye injury in all age groups, except children <5 years old, in which the leading mechanism was contact with a chemical product (34.2%). Corneal abrasion (36.5% overall) was the most frequent diagnosis across all age groups.

Conclusions

Although the rate of consumer product-related pediatric eye injuries treated in US EDs has decreased since 2001, these injuries remain common among children. Therefore, increased prevention efforts are needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Consumer product
• eye injury
• ocular injury
• pediatric
• child

Abbreviations

• CI Confidence Interval

• CPSC United States Consumer Product Safety Commission

• ED Emergency Department

• NEISS National Electronic Injury Surveillance System

• NFHS National Federation of State High School Associations

• OR Odds Ratio

• US United States

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data analyzed in this study are from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, which is maintained by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Data requests should be directed to the CPSC at https://www.cpsc.gov/Research--Statistics/NEISS-Injury-Data.

Financial support

No external funding or other support was received to conduct this study.

Prior publication

This article has not been published anywhere previously and is not simultaneously being considered for any other publication.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.