Background: Ocular trauma is leading cause of  visual impairment and monocular  blindness all over the world  thus  recognizing its distribution and causes  could potentially help to prevent  Ocular trauma and ocular trauma related ocular blindness.

Objective: To determine the epidemiology and causes of childhood ocular trauma in tertiary eye hospital in Jammu and Kashmir.

Materials And Methods: This is hospital based cross sectional prospective study conducted among 150 children <15 years of age in a tertiary care hospital affected by ocular trauma from January 2019 –January 2021. Age,sex,mechanism and place of trauma, presenting visual acuity and ocular findings were analyzed.

Results: Majority of ocular trauma occurred in children aged <5 years (39.3%).Among 150 cases, boys 105(70) predominated girls 45(30%). Early presentation (<24 hours) was found in majority 82(54.7%) cases. Closed globe injuries accounted for 75% of ocular injuries and sharp object was most frequent object responsible for ocular injury(51%).57% of children had normal visual acuity at presentation with  subconjunctival  hemorrhage(26%)  being most common finding.41.33% of children were admitted in the hospital while rest were managed on opd basis.

Conclusion: Children are vulnerable to eye injuries and most of them are preventable. House being most common place of ocular trauma in this study hence good parental supervision can prevent ocular trauma related visual disability and blindness.

Implementation of safety measures at school can potentially reduce ocular trauma among children.

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Dr Imtiyaz Ahmad Dar

Department of Ophthalmology, Government Medical College, Srinagar, J&K India