Ocular Surface Disorders and Their Association with SocioDemographic Variables among Patients Admitted In Adult Intensive Care Unit Of A Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Present study was done to evaluate the ocular surface disorders and their association with Socio-demographic variables among Patients admitted in Adult Intensive Care Unit. Material and Methods: It was a prospective observational study carried in AICU over period of one year by Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. RPGMC Kangra at Tanda. All the patients who were admitted in AICU greater than 48 hours between ages of 18-65 years were included and evaluated for socio-demographic information like age, gender etc. Thorough ophthalmic examination was also done for ocular surface disorders and analyzed using epi info v7 software. Results: A total of 126 patients were included in the study. Mean age of the study participants was 41.8 years. Maximum patients, 23.8% of the patients were in age group of 51 and 60 years followed by 23% between 21 and 30 years and 41 and 50 years each. 64.3% of the patients were males while 35.7% were females. 101(80.2%) patients belonged to rural areas while 25(19.8%) belonged to urban areas. 73.8% of the patients belonged to lower upper Socioeconomic class followed by 11.2% patients in lower middle class. For 78.6% of the patients, duration of stay in AICU was up to one week followed by 12.7% had the hospital stay was between 1 week and 2 weeks. 74 (58.7%) of the patients had ocular surface disorders. Longer duration of stay in AICU was associated with significantly increased number of patients having ocular surface disorders (Pless than 0.0001). Presence of ocular surface disorders was not related with age (P=0.153) and gender (P=0.359). Conclusion: The present study concluded that there is a close association of ocular surface disorders with longer duration of stay of these critically ill AICU patients. Eye care should be an integral part of management of these patients.