Ocular injury requiring hospitalisation in the South East of Ireland: 2001–2007 Ayman Saeed a, *, Irfan Khan a , Orla Dunne a,c , Jim Stack b , Stephen Beatty a,b a Waterford Regional Hospital, Waterford, Ireland b Waterford Institute of Technology, Waterford, Ireland Introduction Ocular trauma, a leading cause of visual impairment worldwide, typically affects the active middle-aged male population. 20 Visual impairment in this age group can have significant social, psychological and economic implications to the individual, not to mention the financial implication to the healthcare provider. 10 Causes of severe ocular injury can be classed as work-related or home-related, and may also be attributable to sports and/or recreational activities, road traffic accidents (RTAs) and assaults and/or fights. Accidents in the workplace and in the home have accounted for 15–60% and 6.5–30% of eye injuries, respectively, in earlier reports. 1,5,6,17,18,21 Few studies, however, have investigated the epidemiological trends of ocular trauma in the UK and/or Ireland, the most recent study having been conducted in Scotland between 1991 and 1992, and published in 1996. 5,6 In Ireland, and arising from the Treaty of Accession 2003, which came into effect on 1st of May 2004, 8 socio-demographic changes have occurred as a result of 10 new countries joining the European Union (EU). Of the pre-existing EU member states, only three countries (United Kingdom [UK], Republic of Ireland [RoI] and Sweden) conferred, with immediate effect, the right to work without a specific permit to persons from the EU Accession States (EUAS). 7 According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of the RoI, 98,218 workers from the EUAS were working in the RoI in 2006. 2 Similarly, it has been estimated that there are approximately 321,000 persons from these new EUAS currently working in the UK. 22 Of note, the construction and manufacturing industries accommodate a disproportionate number of migrant workers from the new EUAS in the RoI (39% of workers from the EUAS work in construction and manufacturing versus 20% of the Irish workforce employed in these industries). 2 Only one report, by Connell et al., has investigated the nature of work-related eye injuries amongst the non-national population in the RoI; however, this report was restricted to the construction industry, and only a small number of patients was included in that study, which was conducted over a short period (2 months). 3 No previous study has reported the incidence of ocular injuries amongst persons from the EUAS, or investigated the impact of recent socio-demographic changes which have arisen as a result of the free movement of persons from the 10 EUAS, on the trends of ocular injuries requiring hospitalisation. Injury, Int. J. Care Injured 41 (2010) 86–91 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Accepted 19 January 2009 Keywords: Ocular trauma Eye injuries Accession states Traffic penalty points ABSTRACT Aim: To investigate whether recent socio-demographic changes and recent health and safety measures have impacted on the trends of ocular trauma in the South East of Ireland. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed all cases of ocular trauma admitted to our department between October 2001 and September 2007, and the following data were retrieved: demographic details; mechanism of injury and nature of injury. Results: During the study period, 517 patients were admitted with ocular trauma. Work-related and home-related activities were the commonest causes of admission, and accounted for 160 (31.8%) and 145 (28.4%) cases, respectively. In 2006/2007, and following the influx of migrant workers from the 10 new EU accession states (EUAS), the incidence of hospitalised ocular injuries per 100,000 was 89 in persons from the EUAS versus 18 in those of Irish origin, P  0.0001. After adding the offence of not wearing a seat belt to the traffic penalty point system in Ireland, the proportion of road traffic accident (RTA)-related ocular injuries dropped significantly from 6.7% to 2.4%, P = 0.03. Conclusion: The inclusion of the offence of not wearing a seat belt in the traffic penalty point system may have contributed to the significantly lower proportion of hospitalised ocular injuries attributable to RTAs. Also, the demographic profile of patients admitted because of ocular trauma has changed over the last 6 years, reflected in an increasing proportion of these injuries in persons from the EUAS. These data will inform healthcare providers, and those involved in developing health and safety guidelines for the workplace. ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +353 51848000. E-mail addresses: aymantalat@gmail.com (A. Saeed), mikaeh@gmail.com (I. Khan), jstack@wit.ie (J. Stack), sbeatty@wit.ie (S. Beatty). c Tel.: +353 863086752. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Injury journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/injury 0020–1383/$ – see front matter ß 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.injury.2009.01.118