Globe injury is a serious worldwide public health issue frequently leading to permanent vision impairment. The plethora of different types of globe injuries is classified into categories, including open and closed globe injuries. Globe injury occurs mainly in the workplace and at home, affecting predominantly middle-aged working men. Socioeconomic status (SES) is defined by income level, educational attainment, and employment status. Low socioeconomic status has been associated with a higher incidence of globe injury and can be utilized to identify at-risk populations. For managing open and closed globe injuries, different strategies are applied and the implementation of adequate globe injury prevention measures is needed for reducing the occurrence of globe injury. The following article aims to provide an overview of globe injury characteristics and their correlation with socioeconomic status and to highlight the significance of considering SES as a variable in globe injury prevention.

Purpose To present the demographic and social characteristics of patients with ocular foreign bodies (OFB), who visit the Ophthalmological Outpatient Department of a tertiary hospital in Athens, Greece. Patients and Methods During the period January-March 2019, 5181 patients presented to the Ophthalmological Outpatient Department of our hospital, and 543 of them were diagnosed with an ocular foreign body. Moreover, 106 of them were interviewed about their demographic and social factors, regarding among others data about their occupation, level of education, nationality, family, and insurance status. Results The patients with ocular foreign bodies were significantly younger compared to the rest of the examined patients (49.5±13.9 vs 56.3±17 years, p<0.001). Moreover, the ocular foreign bodies were more frequent in men compared to women (15.5% vs 5.0%, p<0.001) and in non-Greek patients (23.7% vs 9.2%, p<0.001). Regarding the social characteristics of the patients with ocular foreign bodies, we found that the majority of them were married, employed, insured, while their educational status was middle and high school. Furthermore, the vast majority of the patients practiced manual professions (73.1% of them). Conclusion We documented that the introduction of an ocular foreign body is frequently encountered in the Outpatient Department of our tertiary hospital in Athens, Greece. We also demonstrated that these patients are younger, while they are more frequently men, of non-Greek origin, with an educational status of middle and high school, and their occupation is associated with manual labour.