The Demographic and Social Characteristics of Patients with Ocular Foreign Bodies in a Greek Tertiary Hospital

Panagiotis Kousiouris,1,&ast; Nikolaos Gouliopoulos,2,&ast; Anastasia Kourtesa,1,&ast; Georgios S Dimtsas,1 Klio Chatzistefanou,1 Nikolaos Bouratzis,2 Maria Kantzanou,3 Marilita M Moschos1 1 1st Department of Ophthalmology, University of Athens Medical School, G. Gennimatas Hospital, Athens, Greece; 2 2nd Department of Ophthalmology, University of Athens Medical School, Attikon Hospital, Athens, Greece; 3Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Marilita M Moschos, 1st Department of Ophthalmology, University of Athens Medical School, G. Gennimatas Hospital, 154 Leof. Mesogeion, Athens, 115 27, Greece, Tel +30 6944887319, Email [email protected]: To present the demographic and social characteristics of patients with ocular foreign bodies (OFB), who visit the Ophthalmological Outpatient Department of a tertiary hospital in Athens, Greece.Patients and Methods: During the period January-March 2019, 5181 patients presented to the Ophthalmological Outpatient Department of our hospital, and 543 of them were diagnosed with an ocular foreign body. Moreover, 106 of them were interviewed about their demographic and social factors, regarding among others data about their occupation, level of education, nationality, family, and insurance status.Results: The patients with ocular foreign bodies were significantly younger compared to the rest of the examined patients (49.5± 13.9 vs 56.3± 17 years, p< 0.001). Moreover, the ocular foreign bodies were more frequent in men compared to women (15.5% vs 5.0%, p< 0.001) and in non-Greek patients (23.7% vs 9.2%, p< 0.001). Regarding the social characteristics of the patients with ocular foreign bodies, we found that the majority of them were married, employed, insured, while their educational status was middle and high school. Furthermore, the vast majority of the patients practiced manual professions (73.1% of them).Conclusion: We documented that the introduction of an ocular foreign body is frequently encountered in the Outpatient Department of our tertiary hospital in Athens, Greece. We also demonstrated that these patients are younger, while they are more frequently men, of non-Greek origin, with an educational status of middle and high school, and their occupation is associated with manual labour.Keywords: ocular foreign body, ocular trauma, demographic characteristics, social characteristic