title: Epidemiology of eye injuries sustained by military personnel in China.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the epidemiological characteristics of eye injuries sustained by military personnel in Chinese army.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eleven military evacuation hospitals located in different regions were selected for this study. We reviewed all the medical records of eye injuries sustained by military personnel between January 2005 and December 2009. Patients'information was collected. All data were put into database and analyzed statistically.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Totally there were 415 inpatients with eye injuries (442 eyes) and their mean age was 24.40 years. Eye injury accounts for 13.51% of all eye diseases in this study. From 2006 to 2009, the number of eye injury increased gradually. Among them, 175 (42.17%) were injured in leisure time, and 145 (34.94%) in working time. Twenty-two (5.30%) patients had an eye surgery or history of eye disease before injury. In all, 246 patients (59.28%) were sent to evacuation hospital within 24 hours and 64 (56.64%) underwent surgeries in 24 hours after injury. There were 389 patients (93.73%) hospitalized for 1 time. Visual acuities of 187 eyes (42.31%)  were grade 1 (larger than or equal to 20/40) after injury. When discharge, 349 eyes (78.96%) obtained a visual acuity of grade 1.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Eye injury has a very frequent incidence in Chinese army and much more attention should be paid to prevent it.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, General Hospital of Chinese PLA, Beijing 100853, China.
authors.forename: Jian-He
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Mao-Nian
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Cai-Hui
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Huai-Yu
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Qiu
mesh_terms: D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D005131:Eye Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008889:Military Personnel; D014792:Visual Acuity