Epidemiology of traumatic and spontaneous subconjunctival haemorrhages in Congo

To determine frequency and associated conditions of subconjunctival haemorrhage

A descriptive and cross-sectional study of all consecutive patients with traumatic and spontaneous subconjunctival haemorrhage (SCH) examined between 1999 and 2004 in a general practice of ophthalmology.

There were 58 (0.8%) patients with SCH (61 eyes) among 6843 consulting patients. They consisted of 34 (58.6%) women and 24 (41.4%) men, with a mean age (SD) of 30.7 years (16). Among the 58 patients with SCH, 30 (51.7%) had traumatic SCH and 28 (48.3%) had spontaneous SCH. In both populations of patients, females outnumbered males. The mean age was 35.5 and 26.4 years for patients with spontaneous and traumatic SCH, respectively (P = 0.04). Patients with spontaneous SCH presented earlier (< or = 3 days, P = 0.006) and complained of a red eye at a greater extent than patients with traumatic SCH (P = 0.02). There were no statistically significant differences between the patients with spontaneous and traumatic SCH with respect to gender (P = 0.75), eye involvement (P = 0.69), location of SCH (P = 0.23) and occupation of patients (P = 0.50). The condition was unilateral in 90% of eyes. Location of SCH was most found to be temporal (36.1%) or nasal (26.2%). In spontaneous SCH, no apparent associated condition was found in 64.3%. Hypertension (14.3%) was the most frequent associated condition. Other associated conditions were rare and included vomiting, sneezing, malaria, hypoglycaemia, sickle cell disease and delivery. In traumatic SCH, 67% injuries occurred at home.

SCHs were seen in 0.8% of patients and occurred more frequently in women than in men in this study.