Prevalence of harmful/traditional medication use in traumatic eye injury

Ocular trauma of varying aetiologies do occur frequently, however when different traditional/harmful substances are applied before presentation in the hospital, prognosis in terms of visual outcome following treatment may be worse than expected. This study is aimed at determining the prevalence of harmful/traditional eye medication practices among patients with traumatic eye injury in a tertiary institution.

It is a retrospective study of patients seen at the eye clinic of the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital (a state government owned hospital), Ado Ekiti, from January to December 2009.

A review of case notes (medical records) of patients with history of ocular trauma both open and closed globe injury and who presented to the eye clinic of the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti from January to December 2009 was carried out. Demographic data of the patients, nature of the ocular trauma, substances applied to the eyes, visual acuity at presentation and after treatment were extracted. Frequencies and percentages were used in analysing the data.

A total of 1420 new patients attended the eye clinic during the study period (January to December 2009). Forty eight (3.4%) applied various substances into their eyes after sustaining ocular injury. Substances applied include Kerosene 25%, cassava water 20.8%, breast milk 12.5%, personal urine 10.8%, and cow urine 8.3%. Nearly half of the patients 23 (47.9%) presented with low vision and after treatment there was no visual improvement in almost all of them, 22 (45.8%). The period before presentation ranges between 1hr -2 weeks post injury. However, the number of monocular blindness reduced from 8 (16.7%) to 5 (10.4%) after treatment.

Kerosene and Cassava water were the common substances applied to the injured eye. The use of these harmful and traditional eye medications on injured eyes can reduce further the visual prognosis despite ophthalmic intervention.