Epidemiological Distribution Of Ocular Injury In Bangladesh: Findings From National Health And Injury Survey 2016

Background and objective Eye injury is one of the major cause of blindness and morbidity throughout the world. The global burden of ocular injury illustrated that, about 1.6 million blindness and 2.3 million low-vision occurred because of ocular injury. Like other low and middle income countries, ocular Injury is one of the growing concern in perspective of Bangladesh. Methodology A national, cross sectional survey was conducted between March and June, 2016 where sample was collected using multistage cluster random sampling. An estimated amount of 2 99 216 population were interviewed where 1 06 233 and 1 92 983 people from urban and rural areas respectively. There were 1 49 995 males and 1 49 221 females. Result The study results showed that the rate of non-fatal ocular injury was 24.8 per 1,00,000 population (95% CI: 19.1 to 30.3). The rate was 16.9 per 1,00,000 (95% CI: 9.1 to 24.7) and 29.0 per 1,00,000 (95% CI: 21.4 to 36.6) in urban and rural areas. The rate found among male versus female were 36.0 per 1,00,000 (95% CI: 26.4 to 45.6) and 13.4 per 1,00,000 (95% CI: 7.5 to 19.2) respectively. Among 25 to 39 years’ age group the rate was the highest which accounted 32.3 per 1,00,000 population (95% CI: 21.4 to 46.4). The leading causes responsible for ocular injury found were Road Traffic Injury and Violence followed by Animal Injury with the proportion of 24.3% (95% CI: 15.5 to 35.0), 24.3% (95% CI: 15.5 to 35.0) and 13.5% (95% CI: 7.0 to 22.7). The incident of ocular injury found to be occurred mostly in the road with a proportion of 27% (95% CI: 17.8 to 37.9). Conclusion Ocular injury is a public health concern in Bangladesh. Road traffic injury, violence and animal injury were found as the major causes for ocular injury. Preventive strategies including safety measures should be necessary to be adopted to address this issue.